


Prairie Doll of Mine

by liketheroad



Category: Bandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-10
Updated: 2011-04-10
Packaged: 2017-10-17 22:00:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 27,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/181662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liketheroad/pseuds/liketheroad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Just as he had known, from the minute he saw him across the playground, that he wanted Ryan for his friend, as soon as the thought that he might actually want to kiss someone occurred to him, Spencer knew that he wanted that person to be Ryan. He knew it made him greedy, but the fact was that he didn't want to leave parts of Ryan out in the open to be taken by other people.</i> Small Town AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prairie Doll of Mine

**Part One; strong and innocent**

Spencer was born in the meadow on the far side of his family's farm. His mother had been picking wild flowers with her sister when her water broke. The labor pains started too quickly, too intensely, and even together the two women couldn't make it back to the house. The way he always heard the story told, his mother and his aunt spent his whole birth laughing; terrified, exhilarated, the open sky above them. All the women in Spencer's mother's family were midwives, all her siblings had been born at home, and he wondered, when he was old enough, if there had ever been a plan to have the birth in a hospital anyway. The way his mother's face always grew proud as she told the story, he couldn't really imagine her being content to have it any other way.

His sisters, twins, were also born on their land, but that birth at least had the benefit of being inside, with both his mother's sisters, and her husband, present.

But Spencer, as his mother always ended the story, hadn't waited for anyone. He'd done things on exactly his own time.

\---

Spencer didn't want to go to school. His sisters didn't have to go, they got to stay home with their mother, in their house that smelled like daffodils and thyme. At home he could run through their fields to the old oak tree at the edge of the hill and hang for hours from his tire swing. He could help his father in their garden, and in the barn with their horses and chickens. He could follow his mother and catch the clothes as she dropped them, sun dried from the line, and chase after the new litter of kittens that had been born that spring.

If he had to go to school, he wouldn't be home to do any of those things, and he would miss which one of the kittens caught the most moths that day and he was certain his sisters would play with his toys. That was fine so long as he was there to watch them, but it was hardly acceptable if he wasn't. They were girls, and they were still practically babies. In Spencer's opinion, neither of those groups could be trusted without supervision. And obviously, as their older brother, his was best.

He tried to explain all this to his mother, but as was so often the case, she failed to that he was obviously right.

He continued to argue with her until the first day of school finally came, and even that morning, while he ate his oatmeal, Spencer protested. He should be there help her watch the twins! That was one of his jobs, who would do it if he wasn't there?

She only shook her head, and told him they'd be all right. Spencer narrowed his eyes. His mother never lied to him, but he couldn't help but wonder if maybe she was just wrong in this particular case. It wasn't a welcome thought, but it was possible.

Still, he took the backpack that she had bought him in town and trudged down their long dirt driveway to the mailbox, where he stood beside her and waited for the yellow school bus she had explained would take him to his school. He'd gone with her and his father to see it, some days before, had walked around the playground which was smaller, and duller than his own front yard. He continued not to see what all the fuss was about.

When the bus rumbled into view and the door screeched open, he stared at his mother wide-eyed, but she smiled and told him he'd be fine, he just needed to remember to be brave.

He was the oldest, and his sisters would have to do this too someday, so he straightened his shoulders, smiled at his mother, and got onto the bus.

It wasn't too crowded, the school was small, and there was enough room for him to sit alone. Some of them stared, especially the older children. Some he'd seen before, in town, but there was no one he was friends with. Spencer had his family, he had never really liked people outside of it, so he glared back at anyone who looked at him, and rode the whole way to school in stubborn silence.

He spent most of the morning the same way. He listened while his teacher explained where they would have lunch, and when recess was - Spencer had been told about recess, it sounded like the only thing about school that was going to be any good at all. She assigned them each a hook in the cloakroom, and they went around the room, saying their names. Spencer crossed his arms and glared extra hard when he said, "My name is Spencer James Smith, the fifth," and narrowed his eyes almost so he couldn't see at the girl across from him who snickered.  
That was the only thing he said until the teacher rang the bell on her desk and told them to file out of the room for 15 minutes of recess.

Spencer waited until everyone else was out before getting up. Ms. Morton smiled at him kindly and asked him if he wanted her to show him where the swings where. He shook his head, and raced to catch up with the rest of the group.

\---

Spencer had planned on standing at the far edge of the playground by the chain-link fence that separated the school from the ditch proceeding the highway; but halfway there, he got distracted by the lone figure sitting hunched in the sandbox. Most of the other students had started a disorganized game of soccer in the left field, and the ones who hadn't joined in were playing four-square on the patch of freshly painted cement. Spencer liked the red of the sweater the boy playing alone in the sandbox was wearing. It reminded him of his mother's favorite shoes.

He considered his original destination for a moment longer, then switched directions and ambled over to the sandbox.

The boy was even smaller up close. His hair was longish and greasy, falling into his eyes. His sweater had a hole in the right elbow.

"I can fix that for you," Spencer announced, motioning to the hole. It was true. Well, not at this exact moment, but his mother had taught him how to mend things. He was good at it.

The boy looked up. His eyes were trying to look mean, but it just reminded Spencer of the way the stray Tom had looked when he and his father had first cornered him in their barn. It had taken awhile, and more than a few saucers of milk, but that Tom had turned out to be the sweetest thing. Spencer called him Apples now. He'd been eating one from their compost heap the first time Spencer had spotted him.

Spencer smiled gently, and held up his hands to show the boy he didn't need to be watching them so sharply. "What are you playing?"

The boy looked down at his own hands. He was holding a wooden airplane. It was painted blue. "I wasn't."

Spencer raised his eyebrows and slowly approached the edge of the sandbox where the other boy was perched. "What were you doing?"

The boy glared at him. "Go away."

Spencer shook his head. "No thanks. Were you telling a story?"

The boys eyes went impossibly wide beside him. "Were you listening to me?" he hissed. "I was being quiet. I stopped when I saw you coming."

Spencer shook his head again. "I wasn't listening. But you weren't moving much, when I was almost at the fence. I thought maybe the game wasn't happening on the outside."

The boy clutched the plan tightly. His fingers looked dirty. "My name's Ryan. Ryan Ross."

Spencer grinned. "Like me!"

Ryan looked at him like he was crazy.

Spencer explained, "I'm Spencer Smith. S.S, see? Like you. We match."

The look in Ryan's eyes didn't change. Spencer patted his knee. Ryan looked surprised that he had allowed this to happen.

Spencer smiled encouragingly. "What's happening with the people on the plane?"

Ryan stared at him for a long stretch, but Spencer just kept smiling at him patiently. He was confident it would be worth waiting for.

Ryan leaned closer and started to tell him.

\---

When the bell rang Ryan ran off without saying goodbye to Spencer, and Spencer wondered what made him go so fast. He dropped his plane, and while Spencer considered the possibility it wasn't actually Ryan's, he picked it up and tucked it into his pocket anyway. He hadn't seen Ryan in class, and he seemed older even though he was so small, so Spencer guessed he had to be in a different grade; but the school wasn't that big, and they would have recess again tomorrow. He would see Ryan soon, and when he did, he would return the plane, and maybe, if he was smart about it, he could get Ryan to tell him what happened next.

\---

The bus Spencer took to and from school also took care of all of the kids who lived out of town, but they were scattered all over, up dirt roads and twisting highway, so the route home took almost twice as long as it would have if the bus went directly from school to Spencer's farm. Spencer didn't like the bus; it was loud and smelly, and while other kids fought to get to sit in the back, to ride the bumps in the road, flying all the way up off their seats at times, the jostling just made Spencer queasy. Worst of all, there were a few older kids who made it their business to taunt him, to let him know he was too round, that he looked like a girl, that he was a baby. Spencer wasn't used to this sort of treatment. At first, he hadn't even understood. It had just been small stuff at first, names and laughter, and he'd thought maybe they were joking, and he had tried to laugh along, to get them to share the joke. He'd held onto this, certain they were joking or at least mistaken, but when the laughter increased the more he tried to explain they were wrong, that he wasn't any of the things they were saying about him, he was forced to realize that was the point, somehow. That whatever the joke was, it wasn't one he was going to be included in, except as the victim. He didn't understand it, and he didn't like it. He had never been treated that way, and he didn't know how to make it stop. He didn't have any practice. He knew how to be a good older brother and a good son, he knew how to take care of kittens and sew, knew how to milk cows and plant potatoes. Bit by bit, Ryan was teaching him how to be a good friend. Those were the things he was good at, the things he was used to. And in return, he was used to his mother's proud smiles and his father's warm pats on the head, to his sisters trusting, adoring gazes. He was used to being the big brother.

He hadn't been a baby for so long. There was a gang of boys on his bus who apparently disagreed, however. They seemed too old for grade school but Spencer heard whispers, warnings passed between classmates about the grad six boys who kept being held back, too much trouble and too little attention to get passed on to junior high.

He never meant to, but when they teased him he got angry, and when he got angry, he tended to cry, and they didn't understand he wasn't crying because he was sad, he was crying because he was furious, because they were stupid and big and if he was bigger he would be showing them how stupid they were. He would sit alone in his seat and clench his fists, hot tears running down his face, willing himself to grow, to be stronger, faster, but day after day, he stayed the same.

\---

The only thing that made the rides to school worth it was seeing Ryan once a day for recess. In the mornings he tried to pay attention to what his teacher was saying, because he couldn't stand to be stupid as well as small and chubby; there had to be something at this place he was good at other than being Ryan's friend. But as important as that was, being good for Ryan was always going to matter more to him, would always hold more of his focus. Ryan had looked so startled that second day when Spencer found him again and returned his plane, so much that he hadn't even bothered to tell Spencer to go away, had just let him sit down beside him, had even smiled a little before he ran away at the sound of the bell. Now Ryan didn't look surprised, he looked satisfied, but only for a second before he hid it under a haughty smile, beckoning Spencer closer so he could tell him the next part of the story about the people on the plane. They were crashed on an island, and they were deciding who should be their new king. Ryan always smiled slyly as he told the story, because he knew what was going to happen, and Spencer knew Ryan enjoyed giving Spencer pieces of the secret slowly, waiting for him to come back everyday to learn more. Ryan even did voices, low enough that only Spencer could hear, but different for every character, so that Spencer could close his eyes and see it all before them, the lush trees and the white sand, the birds that flew, bright orange and red in the pink sky.

No one ever talked to them then, no one ever approached. Spencer didn't know why, but people seemed afraid of Ryan. Even in the halls when he caught a glimpse of Ryan's hair or face in the distance, he always seemed apart, there was always a barrier of space that surrounded him. Spencer wondered how Ryan managed that and wished he was brave enough to ask Ryan to teach him, but Ryan was funny sometimes. He got closed off and strange, wouldn't look or talk to Spencer, and he hated that more than the worst any of the bullies could say, so he kept his mouth shut.

\---

Things were not going well on the island. The crash still haunted them. Ryan sometimes cut back to it in the survivors' nightmares. It was only ever for snatches of time, all fire and breaking glass, confusion and fear and made Spencer mold himself against Ryan's side, eyes wide and rapt. He could close his eyes and imagine it perfectly as Ryan described how the memory of the impact of hitting the water still woke the children up, gasping for breath. But he could only do that for so long before he had to snap his eyes back open and reassure himself he wasn't there on that island with those huddled children and the few remaining adults, that he was surrounded by fields instead of water, that Ryan was safe beside him.

Beyond the nightmares, they had supply problems, and the new government had been decimated when the remaining fathers were killed in their sleep during a raid. Hostile locals, who were never seen, but shot fire arrows through the trees and hid in the dark, had been plaguing the survivors since the second week Ryan started telling Spencer the story; but the ones who were left, mostly children and a few teenagers, were hiding somewhere new, a set of caves beside a fast moving stream.

They were being led by someone new as well, a teenager named Peter. He was small, small enough to hide well with the rest of the younger children, but fast and strong. Spencer hoped he might be able to protect them, but Ryan kept hinting at more danger to come. They could only hide for so long, and everyone was getting tired of eating fish and berries. Despite this, Spencer was rooting for Peter, and the small band of children who were left. Peter was one of the few passengers Ryan identified by name, referring to the rest of the children by descriptions only, lumping the adults into mothers and fathers, their individual identities a clear afterthought. Most of the mothers had died in the crash; Ryan had dismissed their deaths almost casually, only adding in some more detail about distressed children when he noticed Spencer's face was slack and upset. That was when Ryan had tucked Spencer in a little closer and first told him about how Peter had started taking care of the rest of the children, the ones had lost both their parents already.

\---

The first time someone other than Ryan ever talked to Spencer at school, it was a red haired girl who cornered him by his hook in the cloakroom, jabbing him pointedly in the stomach.

"Your mom and my mom go to the church," she informed him loftily.

Spencer squinted at her. His mother took him and the twins to church sometimes. They'd sit together in a row, close their eyes and listen to the music, which was always beautiful, even if Spencer didn't pay attention to the words. He liked playing in the lawn outside the church after services, there were sometimes frogs in the pond in front; but didn't recognize her as anything other than one of the faces he tried to avoid between recess and class. He put his hands on his hips. "So?"

She huffed. "So you should listen to me."

This didn't seem like a very good argument to Spencer, but he just shrugged at her. "About what?"

She tossed her hair. Spencer thought privately that Ryan would be mildly impressed by how bored she was managing to act. "Stay away from that freaky Ryan Ross."

Spencer felt his stomach and fists tighten. "Why?" he demanded, already certain that regardless of her answer, he would be doing no such thing.

Her face grew soft for the first time, genuine. She leaned into him a little. "My sister used to go here, she's in junior high now," she sounded proud, "and before I came here she warned me about him. But even if she hadn't, I could see it for myself. Everyone avoids him, and they should. He's mean, and he's scary. I'm pretty sure he's hurt kids before, and if you keep hanging around him, he might hurt you."

Spencer thought of the shy smiles Ryan hid behind his scornful eyes, thought about the way he always managed to make himself easier for Spencer to fold into when the parts of the island story got scary, and considered laughing in her face. Instead he narrowed his eyes and pushed a finger in between their faces to make sure she was listening before he said, with utter confidence, "Ryan will never hurt me," and turned on his heels, grabbing his coat off the hook and storming away.

\---

Spencer talked about Ryan all the time at home, at first because his mom had seemed worried he wasn't making friends and he wanted to show her he was, and then later because he felt like he needed to. Ryan was special and it came out in so many ways: how smart he was, how funny he could be when he was relaxed enough, how quick he could move, the hilarious way he ate the whole apple down to nothing but the twig. But Ryan hid all the things he was, kept them a secret only Spencer sometimes got to see, and while Spencer felt grateful to be let in, he desperately wanted someone else to know how special Ryan was. And his parents were smart. He had thought they were just regular, but school had taught him different. People weren't all like his parents everywhere. They were strange and mean sometimes, and they were stupid, especially when it came to Ryan. Spencer felt confident his parents wouldn't be, so he brought home stories of Ryan everyday.

They were mostly curious, pleased, asking more questions, saying Ryan sounded like a good boy. Spencer approved of this response, and he wanted to take Ryan home, to show instead of just tell, but he wasn't sure how to ask. Ryan sometimes seemed on the brink of telling Spencer to go away again like he had that very first day, back when it hadn't even occurred to Spencer that he might mean it. But he thought about the kids on the bus, and the way they meant those things they said, and he couldn't help but be a bit afraid Ryan might have meant it too. He didn't think, not really, that Ryan would join in if he heard the things those kids said but he might not want to be around Spencer so much, might think there was enough trouble in his life already. Because for all that Spencer didn't understand why people couldn't be good like he'd grown up thinking they were, if one thing was clear to him, he somehow knew that Ryan's life had taught him pretty much the opposite lesson. As much as he wanted to help show Ryan different, Spencer was worried he'd attract the wrong kind of attention for Ryan and just end up making things worse.

It was an unfamiliar feeling, and he wanted it to go away, but hard as he tried, he couldn't figure out how.

\---

A week into November, when the first real snow blanketed the town and all the farms for miles around, Spencer and his whole family got the flu. It always happened like that, one of them started sniffling or coughing a little, and the next thing they knew they'd be spread out under afghans across the living room, drinking tea with lots of lemon and playing word games. The twins couldn't play along yet on their own, but Spencer liked them, and his mom was good at telling stories when he was too tired. Spencer liked it best when he could curl up in his dad's lap while his sisters dozed on the couch beside them, close enough that Spencer could touch their foreheads to check on them if he wanted. He didn't like being sick though; it made him feel slow, his head foggy and big, and he always wished they could spend time like that, all together, when he was feeling better too. He even got his way, a little, that time. He'd gotten sick first -- his dad said he'd probably gotten it at school - so he got better first too, but managed to beg a whole extra day at home while the twins were still pretty out of it. He got to make the tea and toast, cutting it into squares the way he always liked when he was sick, and helped his parents tidy up a bit, but mostly stayed curled up with them and the twins, telling stories and looking out the window, watching the snow fall.

\---

The next day he had to go back to school, and the kids on the greeted him with jeers as he walked to the empty seat that had come to be his. The driver shouted for them to pipe down but as always that just made them snicker behind their hands. Spencer crossed his arms and scowled, trying to pretend he was still at home wrapped under three blankets and tasting lemon on his tongue.

He was still tired, not sick anymore but a bit run down, so even though he tried to pay attention so he could catch up, he missed most of what his teacher said until the recess bell snapped him into alertness.

Ryan.

He made it in and out of the cloakroom faster than anyone else, and was out the door fastest too, scanning the playground for a sign of Ryan's gray winter coat. It wasn't like a normal coat, wasn't puffy and zippered like Spencer's. It was wool and had buttons everywhere. Other kids made fun of Ryan for it, maybe just for variety, but Spencer thought it suited him. It was too big, but most of Ryan's clothes were.

He wasn't in the sandbox where they usually sat, but Spencer kept looking and eventually spotted Ryan straining against the chain link fence, with his hands pushed through breaks in the chain, watching the cars drive by on the highway. He approached slowly, but noisily, so Ryan would know he was coming.

Ryan unfolded his hands, pulling them out through the fence and turning sharply on Spencer. His eyes were hard and narrow like they usually were with other people. Spencer shuffled his feet but kept his chin up.

"Where'd you go?" Ryan demanded.

Spencer's shoulders relaxed a little, understanding his welcome better now. "I was sick."

Ryan pursed his lips, titled his head back. "Are you better now?"

Spencer nodded, "Better enough to come to school."

Ryan's glare softened into a slightly petulant frown. "Tell me next time, if you're going to be sick."

"I didn't know!" Spencer protested.

Ryan shook his head. "You can use your parents phone. They have one, right?"

"Yeah," Spencer smiled. He hadn't known, before, how to ask for Ryan's number.

Ryan nodded, very serious. "That's good." He pulled out a small bent notebook from his back pocket and a stub of a pencil. He wrote slowly, and handed the paper to Spencer with import, "Here. Can you read it?"

In big, clear letters Ryan had written: Ryan's phone number (205) 929 - 8732 (for emergencies). Spencer was pretty sure he had even spelled "emergencies" right.

"Can I call you even if it's not an emergency?" he asked, hoping he already knew the answer.

Slowly, like he did when he was surprised to be doing it, Ryan started to smile.

\---

Spencer called Ryan as soon as he got home, running up the hill to his house, through his front door and flying past his sisters playing on the floor in the hall. He shouted a hello to his mother and scooped up a kitten on his way, and then perched on the stool by the wall where the phone hung, he held the paper out before him and carefully dialed the number.

Ryan picked up after half a ring, and there was laughter in his voice, "Spencer?"

"What happens after Peter learns how to talk to the giant purple bird?" He had tried to figure it out the whole ride home, eyes closed, a way out of the taunting voices that surrounded him, away from the chatter that excluded him.

He could hear Ryan shifting in his seat, across the phone line and the distance, and he closed his eyes again, this time to try to take himself there, getting comfortable alongside Ryan.

"Well, she starts taking him to exciting new places, but he misses the rest of his friends, so he always comes back at night and tells them what he saw, and when he can carry them, he brings back flowers and fruit from the mountain tops they visit." Ryan's voice was stronger over the phone, he seemed to put more of himself into it. Spencer strained to hear it.

"What else?" He was getting braver with Ryan now, ready to ask for things just to show Ryan he wanted them.

Ryan chuckled again, and began talking again.

Spencer kept his eyes squeezed shut, seeing Peter soar through wisps of cloud and snatch fruit from tree tops, safe and free.

The kitten in his lap purred.

\---

Two days later, at school again, Spencer found Ryan before the first bell and said, before he could lose his nerve, "Come to my farm, come home with me today. I have so many things I want to show you." The tire swing and his comic books and the place in the hayloft where you could lie and look through the cracks in the roof at the stars.

Ryan looked at the ground, his eye lashes fluttered, hair falling into his face. "I can't today."

Spencer tried to listen for what Ryan was saying with the words he didn't speak. "Tomorrow?"

Ryan looked up, surprised to have been given the option. "I'll try for tomorrow."

Spencer put a hand just briefly on Ryan's shoulder. He liked to touch Ryan, to remind himself Ryan was real, not just a friend he dreamed up, imaginary and too strange not to be perfect. He wanted to bring Ryan home for the same reason. To know he could be real outside of this place, where Spencer needed him so much.

"Tomorrow."

\---

He told his parents he had asked Ryan home, and his mother finally asked, "Ryan's last name isn't Ross, by any chance?"

Spencer nodded. There was something strange in his mother's tone, it made his stomach twist.

"Yes, his names match, just like mine do. It's how I knew we were meant to be friends."

She looked strange for another second, pinched like she got when she was worried about his father working too long in the fields or about the twins getting a cough, but then she smiled, and bent down to ruffle his hair. "I guess it's a good thing we decided to name you Spencer."

Spencer grinned. It was a very good thing.

\---

Spencer almost didn't sleep that night. He stayed up for hours under a tent made of blankets, with a flashlight and his favorite book, but he must have fallen asleep, because when the sun came up he woke up, the flashlight still on and a crease in his cheek from where it had rested against the spine of the book all night. He switched off the flashlight, feeling a pang of guilt over the waste, and smoothed the pages of the book carefully before pulling the covers off his head. He stood up on his bed, peering out his bedroom window out onto the east field of his farm. He could see his oak tree at the end of the property, and the sun was glinting off the new drifts the wind had made out of the snow. He was suddenly glad his parents had saved his older pair of snow shoes after buying him new ones this Christmas. They still worked pretty well, and he thought he if didn't give Ryan the choice, he could convince him to use the new ones as they explored.

He looked for one more minute, planning the places they might go, and then hopped off the bed, throwing on clothes and bounding down the stairs, eager to start the day.

\---

The bus ride was quieter, there were still looks as he walked down the aisle, but after that he was largely ignored. Spencer wasn't the only one who got picked on, they didn't always focus on him. There was the girl with the sloppy pigtails that Spencer wanted to untie and straighten, but she always had a scared look, so he didn't try to sit next to her anymore. There were the twin brothers with too many freckles and the high voices who got routinely tripped on their back to their seat, because the older boys seem to think it was funny that if one of them fell, the other one usually did too, tripping over his own feet. They never talked to anyone but each other, not even to respond to the teasing questions the older girls sometimes threw at them when the boys were distracted by other prey, so Spencer never tried to talk to them either. He thought of the island, the way that Peter kept all the children in small groups when they traveled, so they could break off and run if they had too. Being clumped all together seemed to dangerous when there were giant snakes and fire arrows to contend with, and it didn't seem all that different when it came to kids that were bigger, meaner than Spencer ever hoped to be.  
\---

Ryan wasn't there at recess, and Spencer's disappointment hammered at his heart. He tried to stay in the area of the sandbox; even though it was covered in snow, it was still their place. But Ryan didn't come, and before the 15 minutes were up Spencer had to move because two girls came over and tried to talk to him, and their voices were bossy, but not like Ryan's, not teasing underneath, and he had to run away before he yelled at them just for sounding wrong.

\---

Even though he was afraid Ryan had decided he didn't want to go, that he had been hiding somehow, Spencer waited outside Ryan's classroom at the end of the day, hoping he would catch him coming out and be able to convince him to come over anyway.

But Ryan didn't filter out with the other students, and Spencer had to let his shoulders sag as he turned away and trudged to the bus bus alone. He lined up for the second bus - the other one took home students on the other side of the town - but just before it was his turn to get gone he heard his name being shouted and in the next minute Ryan was there grabbing onto his wrist and panting with a ruefully relieved smile on his face.

"I made it," he was breathless, surprised.

"Made it from where?" Spencer frowned, unable to keep the hurt out of his voice.

Ryan's face fell slightly, but he followed Spencer onto the bus when they got yelled at by the bus driver to get a move on. "I was in the principal's office all day," he said it almost absently, like that sort of thing happened to him all the time.

Spencer could hardly imagine such a thing.

"Are you okay?" Upset forgotten, eyes widening worriedly at Ryan.

Ryan shrugged, and pushed Spencer gently in the direction of an open seat.

He blinked, "Oh, this isn't my seat."

"It's empty, isn't it?" Obviously Ryan hadn't taken the bus before. It surprised him, knowing about something Ryan didn't.

"Yeah, but it's not mine." Spencer pointed. "I sit back there." It was one of the broken seats, the vinyl seat covering was split in the middle.

Ryan made a face, but followed Spencer's lead.

When they sat down, Spencer realized that no one had said a word to them as they made their way. No one was even looking at them. In fact they were all looking away from him and Ryan, anywhere but at them.

Spencer blinked. "Why were you in the principal's office?"

Ryan shrugged, his eyes darkening slightly. "Oh, you know."

Spencer didn't, but he tucked himself closer to Ryan all the same. Ryan put his arm around Spencer's shoulders, and his glare sharpened as peered over the back of the next seat, challenging anyone to look. No one did.

\---

Ryan called Spencer's mother "m'am," and ducked his head whenever she talked to him. Spencer wasn't brave enough to tease him about it yet, but he did shake his head at Ryan a little, and he backed Ryan up, held his ground so he couldn't get away his mother bent to ruffle Ryan's hair after he remembered to say, "yes, thank you," when she offered him a fresh muffin. He knew from the way her eyes went all soft at his careful eating that whatever strangeness had been in her eyes wasn't going to come back, but he didn't keep Ryan in the kitchen longer than he had too. Ryan seemed wary and Spencer had only ever thought of his home as safe, and he was eager to show Ryan every part of it so he would know that too.

\---

He'd planned to take Ryan upstairs to his bedroom, to show him the rocks he'd collected from the creek at the edge of their farm, just pushing a few minutes into the treeline, but they got as far as the living and then Ryan became an immovable object, standing in front of their bookshelves with an expression Spencer had never seen on his face.

"What?" Spencer asked, shaking Ryan gently.

He snapped out of his reverie, turning to Spencer with the same awed look on his face, "You have books, in your house," his tone matched his face, hushed, amazed.

Spencer grinned. "Yeah, a lot of them are my mom's, from when she went to school. She was going to be a teacher, but then she met my dad, and he tricked her into marrying him," his voice was light as he mimicked his mother's words.

Ryan looked somewhat disturbed. "Did he really?"

Spencer couldn't help but laugh. "No, I don't think so. Or she's never minded, at least. She has me and the twins now, that's way better than a classroom full of smelly kids."

Ryan ran a finger along the spines of the most level shelf of books. His finger slowed occasionally, as if he was stopping on titles he recognized. His voice was distant, soft, when he said, "Yeah. Way better."

\---

They found Spencer's father in the barn with the horses, and Ryan shied behind Spencer when his father approached. Spencer's father was nothing to be afraid of, but Spencer felt a surge of pride anyway at the thought that Ryan felt safer with Spencer in front of him.

His father said, crouching slightly, "I'm James, and Spencer tells me your name is Ryan. You've been a good friend to my son, Ryan. I'm glad to finally meet you." He held out his hand to shake.

Ryan stared at him, more shocked than he'd been over the books in their library. After a pause he stepped out from Spencer's shadow and extended his hand. They shook and Spencer's father laughed approvingly.

"Good grip."

Ryan shook his head a little, like he still couldn't quite believe what was happening, but when he raised his eyes to meet Spencer's father's, he smiled.

\---

They got the snowshoes from the barn, and Spencer promised his dad they wouldn't go any further than the tree line in any direction. Spencer longed to take Ryan further, into the woods that surrounded their farm, but it would be dark soon. Without the light he could still find his way home, but there were coyotes in the woods and every few years they got a bear, neither of which Spencer wanted to run into, especially not on his first time bringing Ryan home.

They couldn't go very fast away because Ryan was still learning how to walk on snowshoes, but he didn't get angry when he fell down, not even when he fell face first into snow fresh enough that he sank down into it. He just laughed, shaking the snow from his hair, cheeks red and wet, grinning and holding up a hand for Spencer to hoist him up. Spencer got him up, but didn't let go, and they held onto each other the rest of the way back to the house. Spencer thought it worked better - when their hands were connected Ryan was steadier on the snowshoes - but Spencer thought maybe that wasn't the only reason why it was better. He decided not to think about it and just kept holding on.

\---

Ryan was shy around the twins, but it made them giggle, pleased. Spencer thought he would explain later that little sisters were for teasing, and taking care of, not smiling at from a safe distance, but for the first visit he thought he could let it go. Ryan's shyness was working on his mother anyway, making her hover and try to coax Ryan to ask for seconds at diner. He looked like he could use more than seconds, and instead of offering, Spencer simply shoveled another helping onto Ryan's plate. He opened his mouth to protest but Spencer held up his hands.

"It's on your plate now. If you don't eat it, it'll just go to waste." He widened his eyes so that Ryan would understand the severity of such a thing. Wasting food was nothing to be done.

Ryan knocked Spencer's elbow a little as he reached for his fork, but he smiled around his first bite.

\---

That night Spencer found out a few things about Ryan at once.

He lived in town, and that was why he didn't know about how riding the bus worked.

And within town, he lived in a house even Spencer knew to avoid. He only went into town because of church with his mother, or sometimes to help her with groceries, to stand in the convenience store window and pick out the things he liked best to eat, waiting for his mom to come and let him pick out one to buy. Just that. Just errands and one or two church services a season. Not much of his time really. He didn't like town. It was less trouble than school, fewer people paying attention to him, but it had even less to hold his interest. Most the places it looked interesting to play in were places he was for some reason not allowed to go. Not like his farm, where he could go anywhere he could find as long as he trusted himself to know his way back. He had never seen Ryan in town. Possibly because Ryan lived in the scariest house in town.

It was ramshackle, the yard was taken up by a rusted out truck and weeds. The screen door was broken, it banged in the wind when you passed it, out on the edge of the town. Spencer had only passed by there once himself, watching through the passenger window. The rest was stories he overheard in the halls, or on the bus, older kids talking about the Ross House, about the angry man who lived there, the yelling you could always hear.

When Ryan had directed Spencer's father there on the drive over, Spencer hadn't been able to believe Ryan could really live there. His father didn't seem surprised though, just grim as he pulled to a stop in front of the house.

Ryan kept his face down as he got out of the car. He wouldn't look, not even when Spencer said his name.

He tried again, "Ryan," but his head stayed down. Spencer swallowed, overwhelmed by a feeling he didn't recognize, didn't understand. "I'll see you tomorrow, okay?"

Ryan's faced stayed hidden under a curtain of hair, but Spencer was listening hard enough to hear him when he said, "Yeah okay Spencer, tomorrow."

\---

Ryan didn't cover his surprise very well when Spencer kept his word and found him the next day at recess. Spencer didn't like the feeling that gave him either, but he was able to identify it better. He was used to being relied on. It was just by his sisters, but even at three, they knew to trust him. Ryan was older, and smart. Spencer didn't think he'd given Ryan any reason to believe different.

"I said I'd see you tomorrow," he said, knowing his voice was petulant, accusing.

Ryan pulled his bottom lip between his teeth. "I know."

Spencer frowned. "I'm not a stupid kid, I'm not... I'm not stupid and I don't lie."

Ryan's hands spasmed on their way to his pockets, not making it there, they reached out for Spencer's arm instead. Spencer didn't move, just stared down at Ryan's fingers, wrapped around his arm.

"Do you believe me now?"

Ryan dug his nails in a little, and Spencer nodded his head.

"Good."

 **Part Two; young and foolish**

The summer Spencer was ten, Ryan slept over more nights than he didn't. They woke up with the sun every morning and often didn't even bother to get dressed, simply running out of the house in the cut-offs they'd fallen asleep in, racing each other to the spring a few minutes into the bend in the woods. They stayed there for hours stalking each other in the water, dunking the other when they managed to sneak up behind them, splashing each other and shouting just because they could, because they were far enough out that they were the only ones who could hear. Other days it was different, the ones on the outside of their time together. Days just after Ryan got there, or when he was starting to get that look in his eye that Spencer hated - the one that meant he would be asking for a ride home any minute - Ryan would be quiet, shy like they hadn't done this so many times before, like they hadn't been best friends for going on four years. Those mornings they'd lie on their backs, floating in the water, with their arms spread out, fingers occasionally brushing as the current bobbed them together, looking up and picking out shapes in the sky.

Ryan didn't tell him stories anymore, but Spencer still wondered about the kids on the island Ryan had once told him about for hours a day. Still woke up with half remembered images of orange birds and laughing boys who ducked fruit that fell from above.

\---

That summer they carved their initials into the old oak tree where the tire swing was hung. That fall spelled Ryan's last year in the small grade school they shared, and Spencer spent half his nights wondering what would happen at the end of it. He didn't think Ryan would forget him, but Ryan had been waiting for Spencer to forget about him since they day they met, and he was afraid Ryan might slip out of his fingers if Spencer wasn't there to hold onto.

He never said anything about his fears to Ryan, but it was Ryan's idea to put their names on the tree. After the creek, it was their favorite spot, pushing each other in the swing, taking running jumps onto it together, going higher, higher.

The last night of summer vacation Ryan stayed over again, planning to take the bus with Spencer the way he always did on the first day of school. Spencer didn't get picked on much anymore, not now that everyone knew that if you so much as looked at Spencer Smith, Ryan Ross was going to find out about it. And if you did more than look, you probably weren't going to be happy he did. Still, Ryan always insisted, without ever saying anything about why he was insisting, and every year he climbed the bus behind Spencer and coolly dared anyone to speak. It didn't matter how much older the kids were and it didn't matter how much they had to say about Ryan himself. No one ever said so much as his name when Ryan was there to hear it.

In the morning before school, as they were walking out of the house towards the long dirt driveway, Ryan tugged on the strings of Spencer's backpack and nodded in the direction of the tree. He smirked when Spencer moved to check his watch.

"We've got time, promise."

Spencer didn't bother to check; he trusted Ryan.

They ran there, but not because it was faster, just to be going fast.

Ryan pulled his pocket knife as soon as they got there, and Spencer held out his hand. Ryan smiled, but shook his head.

"Not like that," he waved the knife in the direction of the tree. "On here."

Spencer shrugged. "What do you want to do?"

Ryan showed instead of told, digging into the bark with his knife, roughly engraving his initials before handing it over to Spencer.

"You do it too."

Spencer took longer, making his letters more neat. He stood back and admired his work, and Ryan slapped a hand on his shoulder.

Spencer had always liked the way their initials fit together, and he found he liked seeing them there together all the more. S.S below R.R.

"Best friends," Ryan said, and more than his voice was happy, it was proud. Accomplished.

Spencer thought of the fights they'd landed each other in, thought of the nights he couldn't sleep knowing Ryan was with his father, that even if he wasn't being hurt, he wasn't safe. He thought of the names people had for them they never caught from more than great distances, thought of the worry in his mother's eyes he was getting far too good at pretending wasn't there.

It hadn't been easy, staying Ryan's friend. But for that, it was something to be proud about all the more.

His voice matched Ryan's when he said, "Forever."

\---

Spencer knew he wanted Ryan to kiss him when he was 11 years old, but he waited to ask Ryan until he was 12 because 11 was just old to be understand this wasn't something to be entered into lightly. Ryan needed to be handled carefully sometimes. Most times. Spencer knew he was Ryan's, but Ryan still occasionally seemed spooked by the idea that Spencer didn't ever plan to go away. It wasn't that Ryan didn't want him around, Spencer didn't worry about that. But Ryan wasn't good at thinking he deserved things, and sometimes Spencer knew that their closeness made Ryan uneasy. As though there was better and brighter to be had and Ryan felt guilty about keeping Spencer from them.

This was obviously crazy. Just as he had known, from the minute he saw him across the playground, that he wanted Ryan for his friend, as soon as the thought that he might actually want to kiss someone occurred to him, Spencer knew that he wanted that person to be Ryan. He knew it made him greedy, but the fact was that he didn't want to leave parts of Ryan out in the open to be taken by other people.

But Spencer knew about being patient, so he waited almost a year, until the day after his 12th birthday party (which had just been him, Ryan, and his sisters, eating cake and playing in the front yard, as Spencer liked it) to say,

"Would you kiss me, if I asked you?" Spencer hoped his tone made it clear he wasn't currently asking Ryan to kiss him. This was theoretical.

Ryan's face snapped tight out, and he shook his head.

Spencer's heart sank, but sometimes Ryan meant things differently than how he said them. Sometimes he left parts out for Spencer to parse on his own, or badger Ryan into telling him about. In case this was one of those times, he asked, "Why not?"

Ryan swallowed, and took a long time to answer. "Because you're too young."

Spencer breathed in a sigh of relief, and nodded. Personally, he felt this was kind of a stupid reason, especially considering that Ryan was only a year older than him, but Ryan sometimes had rules like that about Spencer. He had his reasons, even if Spencer sometimes wished the results were different. Still, it was better than he'd feared, and since Ryan hadn't said anything about being too young himself, he hazarded to ask, "Maybe next year?"

Ryan shuddered slightly beside him, and let his face fall against Spencer's, pressing his nose into Spencer cheek. His voice was low and muffled, but Spencer heard him when Ryan said, "Yeah, Spence. Maybe next year."

Spencer nodded, and promptly began counting the days.

\---

He marked it in his calendar, just a simple notation: RR/k? but it was months away, so, for now, Spencer was the only one who knew it was there.

\---

Ryan had rules for fighting. More specifically, he had rules for fighting in relation to Spencer. The rules were simple in principle, but not simple to follow. Basically, the rules were a) stay behind Ryan and b) whenever possible, let Ryan take the heat for it if any teachers found out. It wasn't that Spencer couldn't fight, or even that Ryan just thought he couldn't. But for all his experience with it, Ryan was still highly averse to violence, and more than anything, Spencer knew Ryan wanted to keep it away from him. Ryan hated every punch he had to throw, every fight he had to finish, or step in the middle of. His anger made him quick to fight, particularly when Spencer's name was mentioned, tarnished, but Spencer knew it made him sick afterwords. He'd sat with Ryan too many times after a fight, watching his hands shake, unable to meet Spencer's eyes, like each time, no matter what, he was expecting it to be the last, the final straw, and Spencer would finally see him for who he was, and leave. Ryan saw violence as an inevitability in his own life, and in that frame of mind, sought to cushion the brunt of what was left for Spencer.

So Spencer tried not to let rule number one irk him, as much as he often didn't quite manage it. Ryan's protective instincts came out pretty wonky, most of the time, but as long as Spencer could parse his motives, to step back and understand that at the end of the day he was just trying to help, as ass-backwards and overbearing as his methods often were, Spencer could mostly check his own anger and frustration enough to give Ryan some semblance of peace.

Rule number two had its own logic, no less fucked, but no less important in Ryan's head. That Spencer was best friends with the kid who was constantly in and out of the principal's office, who was suspended nearly every year, who had a reputation that made most people avoid eye contact with him at all times, had long been a challenge for Spencer's parents to accept. That, combined with what was said and assumed about Ryan's father, and Spencer knew his parents had been up nights over it, and he still saw them worrying from time to time when things got especially bad. Bringing Ryan home as much as he did was the only thing that had saved them, because for all that Ryan was nothing but trouble on paper, he was sweet and gentle when life actually let him be. He'd been half-living with them so long Spencer knew his parents thought of Ryan as one of their own, but while he loved them Ryan was never quite able to take that leap, to trust that he wouldn't be blamed for any of the difficulties in Spencer's life, any opportunities he might have missed. So if there was trouble to be had at school, with other kids, or with the teachers, Ryan demanded that, whenever possible, it landed squarely on his shoulders.

Spencer tried to break Ryan of that belief, and the habits that sprung from it, but pressing the topic or acting on his frustrations just set Ryan into a panic and mostly, giving in was all Spencer could do.

\---

Even though Ryan didn't tell him stories aloud anymore, Spencer knew his head was still full of them. Knew because Ryan wrote them down in moleskin notebooks he carried on him until they were full, and then he gave them over to Spencer for safe keeping. Those were some of Spencer's favorite days, the ones where Ryan would get to the end of the final page and stare down at it, surprised at what he had accomplished, contemplating it for a moment before closing the book and handing it to Spencer. Even when Spencer wasn't there to see it happen, he knew the way Ryan's face would look, knew the way his hands would trace over the letters on the page before he closed it back up. Spencer wouldn't sleep, the night after Ryan gave him his latest notebook. Instead he'd stay up all night in a cave made of blankets and lit by a flashlight, reading the stories and half-finished thoughts Ryan trusted only with him. He'd read until he could memorize the words, close his eyes and imagine Ryan's voice was there in his ear, speaking them to him.

\---

Ryan started avoiding Spencer a few weeks before his 13th birthday. Spencer suspected he thought he was being subtle about it, but it was pretty fucking obvious. They were the only people the other ever hung out with. During the summers Ryan practically lived on the Smith farm. The only other thing that occupied Ryan's time was taking care of his father, and he was having a better set of months; he hadn't been in the hospital in awhile, he was even working occasionally. So when Ryan started telling Spencer he was busy and couldn't come over, Spencer knew he was lying.

He let it go on for almost three weeks before he blew up. It was the end of the fourth day of school, and Ryan was hiding half of himself in his locker as he once again claimed he had to go straight home and couldn't hang out.

Spencer slammed his own locker door shut, hard, and said, "Jesus Christ Ryan. I'm not going to fucking jump you."

Ryan shut his own locker door just as hard, but his movement was more smooth. Ryan's always were. Clean, quick. His face was white, expressionless. The only thing giving away his responding anger was the way his nails were digging into his thigh.

"That's not what I'm worried about." Ryan's eyes darted around, watching everyone around them at once. No one was paying attention to them. People were careful not to.

Spencer rolled his eyes. "No? Then what."

Ryan scrubbed his fingers through his hair. It was long again, like it had been they were kids. Spencer thought more about touching it than he had back then.

"Christ, Spencer. You're not fucking stupid. You know why."

Spencer glared at Ryan, but his honest nature didn't allow him to contradict Ryan. 13 was different than 11, or even 12. Sometimes it seemed so different he couldn't even imagine himself a year ago, bold and naive, coming right out and asking Ryan for a kiss and actually expecting he might get one and not a punch in the face.

He hadn't let himself think about any of that back then, he'd only thought of Ryan, of finding some way to keep Ryan with him. They'd been in different schools leading up to that day, separated so much of their time. Spencer had missed Ryan so much, he'd just wanted to make sure Ryan still needed something from him. Entering the strange new terrain of junior high that fall hadn't filled him with any more confidence, just the same frantic need to bind himself to Ryan.

But that wasn't the only reason anymore. There were other things now, doors that first desperate need had opened. He was aware of Ryan in a whole new way. Of the way he moved, the way he smelled. The way his fingers felt when they skidded up Spencer's arms, wrestling and tickling wars that had started to feel like something completely different, like the start of something more.

"It's not like anyone talks to us anyway. I'm not really looking to win friends and influence people."

Ryan huffed, letting Spencer know he didn't get any points for being clever. Spencer cocked his hips, to let Ryan know he was a fucking hypocrite.

Spencer won; Ryan caved into a rueful smile.

"Shut up."

"Come to my house."

"I'm busy."

"You're not."

Ryan pushed past him, knocking their shoulders together, but he was going in the direction of the buses, so Spencer let him have that one.

Once they were on the bus Ryan turned to him and said, "What if I've been busy making you the best birthday present ever, huh asshole? What then?"

Spencer laughed. "Then on my birthday I'll get an awesome present and you'll get a sincere apology."

Ryan crossed his arms, and glared out the window, but the corners of his mouth were twitching into a smile.

Spencer kept his own smile to himself but when he sighed and flopped his head down on Ryan's shoulder to nap the rest of the way home, Ryan let him.

\---

Ryan jostled him awake when the bus gets to his farm, his mouth almost brushing Spencer's ear when he said, "C'mon Spence. Up."

Spencer let himself be manhandled, and laughed in his head. Who exactly did Ryan think they'd been fooling up till now? He'd heard the way the whispers have changed over the years. From freak to fag, fatso to homo.

Once they were off the bus Ryan started walking in the direction of Spencer's house, but Spencer shook his head and headed for the oak tree. After a moment of standing still in protest, Ryan heaved a sigh and followed.

Spencer swung his legs through the tire, standing up like that, hands gripping the rope. Ryan stood behind him and pushed idly, because that's just what they did. His pushes were a little pointed, but Spencer could take it. He had no trouble holding on; he liked the way the rope bit into his hands.

"It's a bad idea."

"What's a bad idea?" Spencer kept his voice sweet, eyes wide. Even though Ryan was behind him, Spencer knew he'd be rolling his.

"You're hilarious."

"I know. It's why you keep me around."

Ryan pushed him a little harder. The branch creaked a little, but Spencer wasn't worried. It had held up over worse.

"That's not why."

For all that he was the most work Spencer had ever known, Ryan was so fucking easy sometimes.

He looked up through the branches. The leafs were full and big, but he could see patches of sky through them still.

"You do it because it's me and you. Just like when we were little, just like we're always supposed to be. Remember what I said when we first met?"

Ryan's hands caught his back, absorbed the force of the back-swing, kept him there.

"I remember you being a bossy, pushy little kid."

Spencer laughed. "Yeah you do. You remember other stuff too."

"You said we matched."

"See, you're not stupid either," Spencer said approvingly.

"Spencer."

"Shut up. I know people don't like it. I know. But that doesn't matter, because it's always been me and you. Sticking by each other, standing up for each other. No matter what. I don't see what makes this so different."

"People will hate us, Spencer. Don't you... it's one thing just to think we're weird, it's one thing to think I'm just the fuck-up son of the town drunk and that you're a fool for putting up with me. This is the kind of thing people kill you over. In a place like this? Fuck."

"People pretty much hate us now. And they can go to hell."

Ryan walked a few paces away, and Spencer got off the swing to follow him.

"It's different. It just is."

Spencer pulled at the belt-loops on Ryan's jeans, awkwardly tugging him close. It was something he'd done a hundred times in their friendship. More.

"You really think it'll make a difference if what they already think turns out to be true? I know you hear what they say about us too."

Ryan wouldn't look at him. "Of course it's different if it's true."

Spencer let go, turned away. "Why? It hasn't made a difference so far. Saying shit that isn't true is exactly what those assholes thrive on."

In his head, a voice was telling him to stop pushing, screaming at him that if this didn't add up, if there was a reason Ryan's protests rang hollow that probably meant there was something else, something worse he was protecting Spencer from; but he couldn't let it go.

"Is it just not worth it for you? Do you not... if you don't want - all you have to do is tell me no, but you have to tell me no from you, not from them."

He was looking at Ryan again now, watching his hands ball up into fists. "No."

He swallowed back bile, a hand going instinctively to his stomach. "You're lying."

Ryan made a noise like a scream, only lower, and demanded, voice raw, "God damn it Spencer, what makes you so fucking sure?"

Spencer didn't have to think about the answer, "You look at me. You don't look at anyone else. Not ever, not unless you're making sure they don't come too close. Because you're different, here, with me, with my family. Different than I've seen you anywhere else in the world. You laugh here, and you let your shoulders down from your chin. You sleep when I'm around, you close your eyes and you trust nothing will happen to you, trust I'll still be there when you wake up. You don't like other people, you don't want them around you. Face it, you either plan to be a monk for the rest of your life or you're stuck with me."

"Not stuck." Ryan's eyes were fixed on the ground, but his voice was clear, adamant.

Spencer crowded in against Ryan, pulled his chin up with a crooked finger. "Choose?"

Ryan shuddered a breath, but kept his eyes open as he closed the space between them. He whispered the word into Spencer's mouth, lips dry and firm against Spencer's. "Choose."

\---

Ryan stopped touching Spencer in public entirely after that. Even just in Spencer's house, if his parents or sisters were around, when Spencer so much as moved towards him, Ryan pulled back, darting out of reach, eyes defiant. It stung, but Spencer could read the fear behind the challenge in Ryan's eyes. He missed the casual arm Ryan used to sling around his shoulders, missed the way their knees used to touch when they shared a seat in the high school cafeteria, but that was the price Ryan seemed convinced they had to pay. This was what it cost to have Ryan's hands fly to his face when they were alone, to have Ryan crush their lips together, his hands snaking under the fabric of Spencer's t-shirts, toying with the edges of his belt, tracing the seams of his jeans.

\---

The school he and Ryan attended went straight through grades 7 to 12, and had a population of roughly 300 students. It swelled to as many as 400 when the seasons were right, and the students from the country who worked on their parents farms were able to attend, but during calving season, for example, it could drop far below even the 300 mark. It varied from year to year, of course, different graduating classes differing greatly size. Spencer's was a particularly large class, comparatively, sitting at almost 60, whereas Ryan's year was down to 38 students by the time he hit the his sophomore year. Spencer knew everyone in his year by name, having been with almost all of them, aside from the rare new arrival, since the very beginning. He knew them all by name, and knew the rest of the student body at least by face, but he wasn't friends with any of them.

When he had been alone, for that bleak year where their ages had separated them and Ryan had already moved on to junior high, Spencer had occasionally been approached. By 11 he'd lost most of his baby fat; working on the farm with his parents, circumstances on the playground, and life as Ryan's best friend, dictated a toughening up that had shown through on the outside of him just as clearly as the inside. And without Ryan there, the old taunts about his looks and the more entrenched stigma of associating with the freakiest kid in town still lingered, but despite that a few other outcasts thought to try and include him in their group. He'd been ruffled, defensive and confused the first time Brent talked to him, shuffling his feat and mumbling an invitation to come play tetherball with a few other boys in his class. He'd said no, a reflex, but Brent had asked again a few days later. That time Spencer agreed, and for a time he'd played with them at recess, ate with them in clump in their homeroom class. It had been... fine. Nothing like being with Ryan, which was at every moment challenging, exciting, and yet somehow peaceful. It didn't matter what was happening, so long as Ryan was there, so long as Spencer was at his side, he knew he was where he was supposed to be. Doing what he was supposed to do. There was nothing like that sense of calm purpose when he hung out with Brent and Tyler and the other boys in his class. He didn't care about the things they talked about, sports and most inexplicably, girls. He liked some of the comic books they talked about, but it seemed like he liked them for different reasons, reasons that caused them to look at him blankly, just shy of hostile. And sometimes they would make fun of Ryan, almost absently, and then duck their heads, sheepish but not quite apologetic when Spencer would bristle. It only took a few moments like that for Spencer to pick up his lunch and start eating alone again, to spend his recesses reading in one of the private corners the building lent itself too, or watching other people on the playground and imagining what Ryan might say about them if he was still there.

For his part, Ryan never talked about anyone from junior high that he was becoming friends with, and Spencer assumed that it was more important that the faces stayed the same, even if the building was different. It had been a shock then, when he got to the 7th grade, to realize that there were kids, older kids, who knew Ryan's name and said it other than to separate themselves from him. Mostly it was older girls, a small collection of strange girls with hair dyed black and black and red smudges around their eyes. They flocked around Ryan that first day of school, walking into the building with Spencer, and Spencer had almost snarled when one of them put a hand on Ryan's shoulder, attempting to draw him away from Spencer's side. Ryan had shook her off, and after a glance to Spencer, had stalked away from them without so much as a hello, but the memory of that day, that momentary glimpse into the life Ryan had led for a year without Spencer's knowledge, still bothered him.

Maybe this was why he clung to Ryan so tight, why he fought his resistance to the more they were starting to have together every step of the way. Mostly, Spencer didn't think it really mattered why he wanted Ryan, why he was so hungry for every part of him that he could have. It just mattered that he was. And it mattered enough that he didn't care that now the insults hurled at them in the halls were true. It didn't even matter that he had to hide from his parents, that for the first time in his life, he had to lie to them. He had been leaving out any details he could for years, why he was fighting, what he knew about what went on in Ryan's home, softening all the edges he could so that they wouldn't worry, wouldn't question Ryan's place in his life. This was different, but it was only a matter of degrees. The motivation was the same, and as ever, despite the mounting costs, Ryan, in any form he could have him, was worth it.

\---

Sometimes Ryan had bruises along the whole of his side, or scattered across his shoulder blades, the backs of his arms. But the only bruises, cuts, or injuries of any kind that showed through his carefully layered clothing were the ones he got from fighting. The rest lay hidden where Spencer was afraid to look.

\---

Before Ryan had come along, Spencer hadn't really named the animals that lived on their farm. When a new litter of kittens was born in the spring he'd start out naming them, but he'd forget, or change them, and mostly it was just "kitten," to whichever one he was referring, or later, when it was more appropriate, "cat." Beyond cats to take care of the mice, they had horses, and a milk cow, and some chickens his mother kept for eggs she collected and sold at the local farmers market, but they were farm animals and aside from the horses were sometimes for eating, so naming them wasn't really something that they'd done. But then Ryan started coming over, and he loved all the animals, even the chickens, and slowly but surely, he named them all.

When they were 10, Ryan had been there when that spring's first litter of kittens came into the world, and he'd come over everyday, waiting for the mother to bring them out of her hiding place for him to name. There'd been four that year, two solid, smoky gray, and two tabbies, and Ryan had cradled them in a pile on his lap, still, even after over three years, so quietly amazed to be able to hold animals, to have them all around him. Animals were a fact of life on a farm, but they never stopped being a novelty and minor miracle to Ryan.

He'd named them all, and even though there were other kittens, other years, and even though he couldn't ever take them home, since that year, those kittens had always been Ryan's. He visited with them whenever he was at the farm, and usually didn't even have to go looking for them. He'd just stand out in the yard talking with Spencer or sitting in the grass and waiting, and one by one they'd slink over, twisting around his ankles and purring. Spencer had never known friendlier cats, and maybe it was just because they got more attention than the others that lived on their farm and as such were less wild, but mostly Spencer thought that they were just sensible, and understood that if Ryan was there to twine yourself around, that was the only reasonable thing to do.

\---

Ryan missed school sometimes. Sometimes it was because his dad beat him up so bad he couldn't hide it, and sometimes because his dad was so sick Ryan was afraid to leave him, afraid of what he might come back to.

There wasn't cell reception, not out on the farm, but a tower had been built a few years before in town, so Ryan had gotten them a pair of phones for their birthdays that year, when they turned 14 and 15. Ryan's dad didn't have much money, he was in and out of work, but Ryan'd held down two paper routes all through grade school and junior high. His new job was washing dishes at the local diner, Bob's. When he was older, legal, he had aspirations to work in the kitchen. Spencer had only met him once, but he liked Bob, as much as he liked people that weren't Ryan, weren't his family. As far as Ryan was able, Spencer got the impression he liked Bob too.

The phones were how Spencer knew this was one of the times when Ryan wasn't there because his dad was sick, not because his dad had made Ryan sick.

He still didn't like it, he never liked being away from Ryan, but he saved the text, running his thumb over the screen in his pocket, pulling it out and reading it over whenever he was out of class, out of eye sight. Cellphones were allowed in the halls, out of class, but it wasn't teacher's weren't really Spencer's biggest problem. There was nothing to make of the message, but Spencer knew Ryan would want him to keep it secret all the same.

\---

It was a cold year, only November but already they were blanketed in snow, and the winds were especially bad, whipping down tree branches, whirling up snow even when it wasn't falling, making driving dangerous, school buses slow. Spencer was in no hurry to get into the bus that would take its time getting him home, half broken heat and the same faces that had been giving making his life miserable since he was 6 years old. So he lingered by his locker as long as possible, organizing his books the way he liked, wiping out melted snow and salt from the bottom of it where his boots usually sat.

He was crouched down like that when he heard footsteps too loud behind him to just be regular foot traffic. Someone, more like five or six someone's, were making their presence known.

Spencer sucked in a breath and tried to summon patience. He closed his eyes and spent ten seconds thinking about the way his mother's hands ran over and over her apron when she was upset, another ten imagining how his sisters looked when they were scared, big eyes, huddling against each other instinctively, and then 20 seconds picturing Ryan's face, the way it went from blank to pissed off to cracked open and empty when he thought he was costing Spencer things he didn't anything to offer back in compensation for.

That was long enough for whoever was behind him to start to laugh, and by the time he was back on his feet, facing them, exactly who he'd thought they'd be were trading smirks that promised the insults they had for him were already poised on their tongues.

"Practice canceled today?" Spencer asked of half the team, putting as much boredom into his voice as he could manage.

"The coach sent us out for a special project," Bobby, the defense caption, informed him with a sneering grin.

Spencer wondered if Ryan would think rolling his eyes counted as starting something. Considering how often Ryan rolled his fucking eyes, Spencer decided he was entitled.

For good measure, he threw in a sarcastic, "Good luck with that," and tried to push past him.

Predictably, they didn't let him.

He bit back a sign and turned his head upward, making eye contact with Bobby. He was 16, and big, but Spencer'd grown a lot that summer. Weeks of bailing with his dad had paid off.

"Get out of my way."

Bobby took a mocking half-step back, holding up his hands. The rest of them laughed.

"What's your hurry," Bobby paused, with little grace but obvious significance, before finishing his sentence, "fag?"

Spencer couldn't fucking help it, he felt his face get hot, his hands curl into fists. But he took another breath and kept them at his sides.

"I've got to catch my bus." Reason wasn't exactly what Bobby and his goons were looking for, but Spencer wasn't really interested in what they were looking for.

Bobby reached out and straightened Spencer's collar. "You sure you don't want to stay in town? Me and my boys will give you a ride, take you over to see that nice girlfriend of yours."

Spencer closed his eyes. He counted to ten. "No thanks."

"No?" Bobby turned to consult with his friends. They raised their eye brows, miming surprise. Spencer considered the fact that they had all probably seen way too many fucking movies.

Bobby wasn't done, "Why's that?" His smiles was breaking into a malicious, taunting thing, his hands were held up, wide and exaggerated questions. He crowded into Spencer as he spoke. "It's cause he's out sick, isn't it. Is he sick, Smith?" He poked Spencer in the chest. Spencer backed up, but his shoulder blades connected with his locker; no where to go. "Does the little cocksucker have AIDs? Do you think that's cause he's a dirty whore or just because it was God's will?"

Spencer's fist connected with Bobby's face while he was still forming the last syllable of his little speech, and he managed to knock Bobby back enough he might have been able to run away, in that first stunned moment, but Bobby spit out, "fucking faggot, you're going to die just like that little bitch," and then Spencer was on top of him, knocking them both onto the ground, fists connecting with any part of Bobby he could reach. In another second the rest of the guys were trying to pull him off but he was so angry he didn't notice, didn't feel the blows to his back, the kicks to his side as he pummeled Bobby.

Spencer didn't know how long it lasted, didn't register anything until he heard new voices yelling at him, teachers filling the halls, and then someone finally pulled him off Bobby, who had stopped fighting back... Spencer didn't remember when. He was awake, eyes open, breathing, but his face was covered in blood. When he looked down, Spencer realized that so were his hands.

\---

He was frogmarched to the principal's office. He noticed dimly that he was the only one.

Teachers talked at him, the principal's called his parents, and Spencer tried to listen, but it was hard over the ringing in his ears, the spinning in his head, his stomach.

He kept hearing over and over phrases like "completely inexcusable," and "could be out for the half the season," and he wanted to laugh. It was as if he was very far away, watching from so far that it didn't matter what was being said, because it couldn't possibly be about him, couldn't touch him.

When he finally looked up, his mother was there. He blinked and saw that his father was too. He straightened up, watched his mother cover her mouth with her hand, watched his father put a steadying hand on her shoulder.

He listened better to what the principal said then.

"All the witnesses say he started it, that it was completely unprovoked. They were just talking to the boy, and then out of nowhere he just attacked Bobby Brubaker. Considering that he started the fight, and given the severity of Bobby's injuries, your son is lucky he's not being expelled. He's suspended for three days, and he'll have detention for the rest of the semester. If anything like this happens again, he will be expelled, do you understand?" This final question was directed to Spencer himself, and he forced himself to nod.

The principal nodded grimly. "Alright. Now get yourself washed up before your poor parents have to take you home."

Spencer didn't look at his parents, he just followed the man's command.

\---

The ride home was the longest of his life. His parents didn't speak. He tried, but found that he couldn't.

They sent him upstairs until dinner, and when he came down, he could see that his mother had been crying.

After dinner he followed his father out to the barn.

He brushed Ryan's favorite horse, Grease Lightening, until his father asked, "Why?"

Spencer had been thinking about his answer to that question from the second they pulled him off Bobby. Somewhere between the principal's office and his parent's truck, he'd realized that this was the difference Ryan had been trying to tell him about. This was the thing Ryan'd been trying to protect him from.

"Because I've been stopping myself from fighting back so long I sometimes feel like I'm saying it's okay to treat me like they do. I couldn't live with that." He knew it wouldn't be, but he prayed it'd be enough.

His dad moved closer. "Fighting back from what? Spencer, I know you. Your mother knows you. We know you don't have that kind of violence in you, not unprovoked. Not unless you thought you were standing for something that was right. So, I'm asking, not to blame you, son, to try and understand you. What's so bad that that boy made you do what you did?"

Spencer wished he was brave enough to say it with his eyes open, but he closed his eyes as he said, "It was about me and Ryan, like it always is. They were saying that god hated us for what we were, and that we deserved to die for it."

His father made a noise that forced his eyes open, and he said, voice faint, "What do they think you are?"

Spencer covered his mouth, let his eyes look anywhere but his father before answering, "They say we're..." He squeezed his eyes shut. "Don't make me say it like they say it."

But his father's hands were on his shoulders. And they weren't pushing him away, they were puling him close.

Spencer clung to him, and pressed his face into the flannel of his father's shirt, and held on with every fiber of hope he had left in his body that his father meant it when he said, "It don't matter. Not what they say, not what you are. You're my son, Spencer, that's what you'll always be."

\---

He spent his suspension doing chores and not being able to reach Ryan even though he called him on his cellphone four times each of the three days. Whatever his father had said to his mother about their talk in the barn was enough for her not to press him with more questions, and as hard as he looked, he couldn't see anything different in their eyes looking back at him, and by the end of the third day, he was actually able to take a breath and almost believe himself that it was time to stop constantly looking over his shoulder, trying to find something other than love and trust there.

It worried him that Ryan wasn't answering his phone, but he'd been out of contact that long before when he was taking care of his dad and until he could know otherwise Spencer chose to assume this was just another one of those times. If Ryan was busy looking after his father, it was possible he hadn't even left the house, and if Spencer was lucky he'd get to Ryan before anyone else did and be able to tell the story himself.

\---

When he stepped onto the bus his first morning back, every kid on it went still. Even the people who'd never noticed him one way or another were averting their eyes and murmuring anxiously to their friends.

Spencer just stood there, staring, trying to make sense of it, until the bus driver prompted him with a somewhat subdued, "get moving, Smith."

He startled, and made his way to his seat. They were half way to school before anyone started talking again, and nearly there before the bus reached its typical, raucous din.

On the school grounds, inside, it was the same. He was alone, and usually when he was alone he was simply passed over, ignored, but now people were moving out of his way, giving his a wide berth and tucking into their friends, almost huddling into groups. It wasn't even usually this pronounced when Ryan was there with him.

Spencer shook his head, and didn't even bother heading for his own locker, just made a swift beeline to Ryan's in case he was back today as well.

Even before he reached it, Spencer knew something was wrong. Something different, worse, than anything else that morning.

Ryan was there, leaning against his closed locker, but he wasn't alone. He was talking with a girl. When Spencer got closer, he realized it was Jac. Jac's family had moved to town that fall, and like all newcomers, had caused a minor stir. The stir Jac caused in the school had been larger than normal, largely because she had long, plantinum blonde hair, wore crazy eye make-up, and had tattoos. She was older than Spencer and Ryan, repeating her junior year. That was as much as Spencer knew about her for sure. He'd heard a lot more, but rumors were bad enough if they knew you; new kids were always the center of the wildest claims for as long as they were strange enough that their veracity couldn't be confirmed.

Right at that moment, Spencer wasn't interested in learning more about Jac, he just wanted to know why Ryan's hand was in her back pocket.

He walked up to them, and said, "Hey,"

Ryan's eyes flashed, but then the same mask Spencer had observed from a distance flew up again, and he was smiling in an overly friendly, completely alien way. Jac looked a mix of bored and a halfhearted attempt to cover that up.

Ryan said, "Jac, you've met Spencer, right?"

Ryan's hand was out of her pocket, but now his whole arm was curled around her shoulders. She shrugged at him, "Hi again Spencer."

Spencer couldn't put enough of a thought together to verbally respond. He managed a half-wave.

The confident mask flickered for another second, but Ryan maintained his smile. "I'm going to walk her to class, but maybe we'll see you later, yeah? We should all sit together at lunch."

Guiding Jac by the shoulders, Ryan turned away from Spencer before he could respond. He watched them walk away, mouth hanging open, heart hammering painfully in his chest.

\---

It was all over school. Ryan Ross and Jac Vanek's whirlwind romance was the hottest piece of gossip on campus. No one was looking at Spencer, but no one talked about him either. The fight, it seemed, was already forgotten. The combination of Ryan's notoriety and Jac's sustained novelty and mystery had everyone buzzing. Spencer got shoved around as he passed from class to class - the hockey team at least wasn't going to let Spencer forget he'd put their starting defense men on the bench for at least two games - but Spencer barely noticed. One of them probably could have punched him in the face and he wouldn't have noticed, his head was already spinning so bad.

He sat with them at lunch, because he always sat with Ryan at lunch. He sat down and got out his lunch and tried to eat it, but he couldn't. He just stared at it instead of staring at them, sharing a chair and a bag of chips, dryly mocking each other while they simultaneously fed each other chips and made moony eyes. Spencer waited for Ryan to explain the mistake, or at the very least the joke, but he didn't. He seemed completely oblivious to Spencer's wide and frantic eyes, a smile placed just a bit too firmly on his face, eyes never quite meeting Spencer's. Whoever this was, ducking in to kiss Jac on the cheek and laughing loud enough for other people to hear, it wasn't anyone Spencer recognized, and it made him feel cold all over.

Spencer lasted 10 minutes before taking a bite of his sandwich, and promptly gagged so bad he gave it up entirely, abandoning the table and his lunch, and full on ran to the bathroom.

There was one stall, and he hid in it, choking back tears and fighting even harder to contain the scream that was building inside him.

Spencer didn't know how much time had passed before he heard the door open, and following it, a hesitant call of his name.

It was Ryan.

Spencer opened the stall door and walked out, standing away from Ryan, thinking for the first time in his life about what it would be like to hurt Ryan and actually wanting, almost, to find out.

Ryan said, "I'm sorry," and took a step closer.

Spencer took a step back.

Ryan's face crumpled, his hands fluttered over his hair. "I had to. It was the only way, okay?"

"What the hell are you talking about?" Spencer croaked.

Frustration flashed across Ryan's face, "What am I talking about? Jesus Christ, Spence. I'm at the fucking grocery store buying aspirin and apple juice and three girls from like, who even knows what grade, are talking about the biggest fight of the year, about how some kid beat the shit out of the captain of the hockey team and I don't listen, because why would I listen, only then I realize they're all staring at me, like I have something to do with it, and then I hear them say that it wasn't just some kid. It was you, and why did you beat the shit out of the hockey captain? Because they said some shit people have said to you a thousand times and you thought, what? Now was a good time to confirm suspicions? You get how fucking reckless that was, right? You can't do shit like that, Spencer, especially not when everyone's gonna say it was cause you were defending the honor of your poor sick boyfriend." Ryan was sneering, sharp and cold like he only got when he was truly afraid.

Spencer didn't speak, just waited him out. There was more. Ryan was just daring him to contradict.

He moved closer, and this time Spencer didn't back up, just let Ryan come.

"Don't you see that I had to do something? Don't you see that if we carried on like we were, if we didn't stop, next time it wouldn't be a story about you kicking someone's ass I heard about in the grocery line. It'd be about how some of those people who talk so much about who god loves and who god hates had put you in the hospital, or string you to some fucking fence, don't you see?! I had to. Had to stop it." Ryan's voice was raw, and every part of him split open, completely wrecked.

Spencer wanted to comfort him, wanted to tell him it was okay, that he did see, did understand. But he didn't. He couldn't get there. "I don't get how this fucking helps. People already think what they're gonna think."

Ryan shook his head. "No, no, see, everybody's talking about us, everybody is convinced I was just... that we were just, just weird kids, close friends who just didn't have anybody else, there are other people who don't... people can understand that. But as long as I'm with her, you can't be anything more to me, and everyone will forget about before, the attention will be on her and me, and you can keep hanging out with us, as long as you're with us they'll just have to assume you're normal too." He was breathing hard, his voice had changed to pleading now, his face too.

Spencer let it soak in. Let himself take as long as he needed to actually believe that this was Ryan, that Ryan was actually saying these things to him.

Eventually he came up with, "I don't want that, you hear me? It's a lie, and I don't want any part of it. It's mean, and it's stupid, and I'm not... I can't..."

Ryan looked stricken. "Spence, I told you, back when you started this I told you it would get fucked up, get messy, I warned you--"

"Shut the fuck up! This isn't the only way it could be - you're wrong - you just... you just won't try. You won't believe that I'm strong enough. But I am. I proved that, fuck, didn't I? I barely even got hurt."

"This time, this time Spencer. And you got suspended, and they called your parents! You think I'd let that happen again? Jesus."

Spencer took a step back, and swallowed hard. "This isn't you protecting me."

Ryan's eyes were wide, impossibly, completely earnest. "Yes, it is."

Spencer shook his head, crying now, hot silent tears down his face. "No. It's really not. And you do what you want, I can't stop you. But I'm not going to stand by and watch. I'm not."

"What are you talking about?" Ryan's question came out like a plea.

Spencer walked towards the door, and brushed a thumb along Ryan's cheek as he passed, "Bye Ryan."

He walked out the door, and Ryan didn't try to follow.

\---

Spencer cried every night for a month. He drifted through life like a zombie, at school, at home. His sisters asked him to play and he barely heard them, his parents asked him what was wrong and his mouth clammed shut. At school he had turned invisible, lost to the ranks of those below even contempt, and the marginal effort that took. When he saw Ryan, he pretended he was someone else, and he had little trouble. Ryan didn't even look like himself anymore. He dressed different, flashier, odd fitting shirts and a red leather jacket. He'd chopped off half his hair, but kept his bangs long, and wherever he went, Jac was there, holding his hand, whispering in his ear. Not even his face, or his voice, was the same. Every reaction was off, every tone, every movement. For weeks Spencer stared and stared, because he couldn't help it, because somewhere underneath he had to believe Ryan was still there, but after the second month he couldn't look for something Ryan wasn't going to let be found.

He started thawed a little by the spring. Looked up and occasionally registered what he saw. He threw himself into chores, into school work. He tried to listen when his family talked to him, tried to smile at them. Eventually his parents stopped asking about Ryan, but his sisters sometimes still pestered him about why Ryan didn't come around anymore, where he'd gone. He knew it made them sad, not having Ryan around, and he knew the way he never answered them just just made them scared, but as hard as he tried for them, he never could.

\---

That summer he worked with his father everyday. When he was off their land working jobs on other farms - repairing tractors and combines - Spencer went along, learning what he could, helping where he could. He worked so hard that he fell dead asleep every night, made himself so exhausted that he slept straight through until morning, and if he had them, he was usually too tired to remember his dreams.

\---

On his birthday, he went to the oak tree for the first time and when he got there, he wished he'd brought a bottle to throw against it. He broke down for the first time in months, shouting at the sky, kicking the tree, bashing his fists against it. His hands came up bloody from the bark, and when he was too worn out to yell anymore, he sank down against the tree and cried.

\---

School started late that year, after labor day. Spencer was surprised how little his days changed, being back there. He still did anything he could to tire himself out, still felt the same hollow echo at his side.

It was a cool fall, starting early, and the leaves were changing by the end of the month.

They got a bad frost the first week of October, and Spencer's mom made him a new scarf for his walks to the bus stop at the end of their long driveway . You could still see the house at the top of the hill from the spot he stood every morning, waiting, but it looked lonely from down there. Spencer had to remind himself not to imagine Ryan's voice in against his neck, telling him that was called transference.

He found he liked having something to do with his mind almost as much as he had having something to do with his body, and he threw himself into his school work once more. His grades were better than they had ever been, and he asked for extra assignments in math and science whenever he could. He was doing worse in English, because he couldn't read books without his mind trying to replace the sound of his own voice with Ryan's in his head.

\---

He mostly told time by what kind of classes he had that day, thought in the system of numbers the school assigned them instead of days of the week. It was a Day 3, gym and power-mech instead of chemistry and health, the day he swung up from his crouched position over the water fountain and cracked his skull into Ryan's chin, standing unnoticed and silent behind him.

He said, "Oh shit sorry," before he even registered that it was Ryan who was cradling his jaw, eyes wide. He didn't make a sound though, which probably should have given Ryan away in the first place. His tolerance for pain wasn't what other peoples was.

He took his hand from his and said, "Hey," in an even voice, and Spencer knew the trace of faintness he heard had nothing to do with his injury.

He could never control it and it was one of the things he hated most about himself, but his cheeks went hot and pink. He thought about what he and Ryan owed each other, and wanted to at least say hi back, but it wouldn't be the last thing out of his mouth if he did, not by a long shot, so instead Spencer hurried away without a word or single glance behind him.

\---

Ryan and Jac broke up in the middle of the cafeteria a week before Halloween. Spencer had been 15 for 40 days. He was standing alone in line buying a carton of milk, but he turned with everyone else when Jac threw a glass orange juice bottle to the floor at Ryan's feet. Ryan didn't even jump back, just stood there with his arms spread open, a startlingly sincere look of regret on his face.

Spencer wanted to rush to Ryan's side, to stand in front of him in case Jac threw something else, but he didn't move, he even turned back around. That wasn't his place anymore. It was his turn in line, so he paid for his drink, and assured himself he couldn't help but hear her scream, "Go to hell Ryan Ross!"

He left the line and crossed the cafeteria to leave, and it brought him close enough to hear Ryan whisper back, "I'm sorry," in a voice Spencer hadn't heard in months. There was no artifice in his words, not now. It was simply Ryan's own. It wasn't entirely clear to Spencer who exactly Ryan was apologizing too, but he was certain Ryan meant it.

\---

Spencer didn't really know what he expected to happen. Until that point, the prospect that they might just... break up hadn't even really occurred to him. He supposed it should have. This was high school. That sort of thing happened all the time. And he knew from personal experience that Ryan could be a little high-maintenance at times. Jac didn't look anymore laid back.

It was just as well he hadn't had any kind of hopes up, because what happened was nothing. Things stayed the same. He kept acing math tests and barely passing English ones, kept all but begging his dad to give him more chores to do when he got home, kept practicing driving in the back roads behind his house, kept eating lunch alone in whatever empty classroom he could sneak into, kept averting his eyes when Ryan came across his line of sight.

For his part, Ryan didn't approach Spencer, didn't try for so much as eye contact. He was still hanging out with a few of the other, vaguely goth friends he'd picked up while dating Jac. As far as the actual social hierarchy went, they weren't much further up than he and Ryan had once been, but there was a different kind of strength in numbers now. There were enough of them that they had just a hint of legitimacy, of normalcy. Enough to keep Ryan happy, apparently, enough to keep him away.

\---

He was asleep and dreamed them into his sleep for another five minutes before the scratches at his window actually woke him up. He thought it was a tree branch, but that was a noise he'd grown up too, and it almost never bothered him now. He sat up in bed. Grabbed for the flashlight. No amount of being 15 had grown him out of keeping it at the side of his bed.

He shined it at the window, and for awhile there was nothing, but then he heard it again, and realized it wasn't really a scratch, it was more of a clicking, when a few pebbles hit the window at once. He didn't think, he just slipped out of bed and grabbed a sweater off his desk chair as he went, padding silently down the stairs and out of his house into the night. There were so many stars out it almost didn't seem dark, and his eyes found Ryan like he was the only thing in the world to see. Ryan had a way of making anything he stood beside seem less important.

He was cradling one of his arms with the other, his jacket was draped awkwardly over his back rather than being on in the strictest sense, his face was battered and half covered in blood, some caked on, some fresh. It was a long way from Ryan's house to their farm.

It was far worse than Spencer'd ever seen him. Ryan was usually pretty good about cleaning himself up after. In all their years together, not even Spencer had gotten to see him like this. He'd wondered, once, who Ryan was shielding, and in that moment he knew it wasn't himself Ryan had been protecting after all. He should have known better than to ever think it. Ryan could be 11 months worth of stupid, and still be trying to save Spencer from harm the whole time.

He didn't know what made him believe it now when he hadn't for a single day in the whole time that they'd been apart, but whether it was the look on Ryan's face or the blood marring it, Spencer couldn't do anything but forgive him.

He walked close and touched the fingers Ryan extended to him.

He listened close and soaked in every syllable when Ryan said, "Hi Spencer," low and flat and exactly like himself.

He squeezed Ryan's hand gently and said, "Hey Ry. I miss you."

Ryan choked his sob into a laugh. "Yeah Spence. I miss you too."

 **Part three; brave and bold**

Spencer half-carried Ryan upstairs, and tucked him into bed as carefully as he could. He got bandages and gauze from the bathroom. It had always seemed so normal, having a first-aid kit under the sink in case one of them injured themselves working with the farm equipment, or horses. Even though his sisters knew their horses and were excellent riders, they wound up with enough scrapes and cuts that it had a lot of use.

It was different, leaning over Ryan and wiping caked blood from his face, finding a deep cut just below the hairline of his forehead and hoping to god he was doing a decent job patching it up. They weren't speaking, but Ryan's breathing was more relaxed now. He'd stopped looking at Spencer like he was going to be asked to leave.

Ryan looked a different kind of worried though, and Spencer could read questions about his parents looming on Ryan's face, but he just shook his head.

"I'll let them know in the morning, they won't be mad." Ryan looked supremely doubtful. Spencer gave him a stern look. "Trust me."

Ryan didn't need any time on that one, he just nodded. "I do."

Spencer came and sat on the edge of the bed. "What happened?"

Ryan shrugged gingerly. "I fell down some stairs."

Spencer winced. "You have any help with that?"

Ryan looked away. His silence said, what do you think?

Which, fair enough.

Next question, "How'd you get here?"

Ryan kept staring at the wall away from Spencer, "Hitched."

Spencer blinked. It wasn't that uncommon, but even on his best day, Ryan wasn't exactly the locals' most popular hitch-hiker.

"Like this?" He thought about waving in Ryan's general direction but it seemed superfluous.

Ryan smiled, tired. "Like this."

Spencer reached out and brushed hair out of Ryan's face. "I should be so pissed at you."

Ryan nodded, dejected. "Yeah."

"I'm kind of not anymore," he admitted. "I think I burned out my anger bailing hay this summer. Also, my mothers floors have never been cleaner, she has you to thank for that."

Ryan didn't look any happier at this even though Spencer had tried to keep his voice light. "It can be just for tonight, after, I can..."

"You trying to piss me off again, is that it?" His voice was tight, mostly even, but it felt like his heart had stopped in his chest.

Ryan's eyes shot up finally to meet Spencer's. He shook his head hard. "No."

Relief pounded in Spencer's chest. He breathed deep. He didn't need Ryan's apology. As far as he knew what he would be apologizing for, Ryan had already given it. Spencer needed something else now. "You promise me you'll never try something like that again or I swear to god I'll kick you out of this bed myself." Injuries or no, they could both hear he meant it.

Ryan reached out and curled two of his fingers around Spencer's wrist, and squeezed. Spencer felt his breath rush out of him at the simple touch. He didn't know why he hadn't been expecting it. Ryan had come to him when he didn't have anywhere else to go, he'd let Spencer see him at his worst, let Spencer clean him up, was lying in Spencer's too-small bed next to him. Ryan asked, "Spence?"

Spencer's fingers on his free hand scrabbled to dig in wherever they could. He found himself clinging to Ryan's thigh, where he wouldn't hurt him anymore than he already was. Ryan was looking at him now, eyes wide and unsure in the dark. Spencer said, "Harder."

Ryan frowned, not understanding.

Spencer swallowed. "Your fingers, I need you to hold on. Harder."

Ryan shook his head. "It'll hurt."

"It won't," Spencer said. Maybe he didn't have the tolerance that Ryan had, but he knew he was right about this. "It won't."

Tentatively, Ryan tightened his grip. Spencer said, "Yes, just, I--" It wasn't even a kiss. Nothing like they had done before Ryan had gotten stupid and noble and even more Ryanish than normal on both of them. It was Spencer's lips brushing mid-word. Ryan made a sound Spencer had never heard and took the invitation, working his way into Spencer's mouth. Ryan kisses were different than Spencer remembered, more polished, more knowing. There was a small, ugly part of Spencer's mind that wanted to kill whomever had taught Ryan this--Jac--there was an even weirder part that kind of wanted to thank her. Because, wow, Ryan really, really knew how to kiss. It was hard to think with Ryan's lips hot and wet and maybe just a bit salty on his.

Spencer tightened his fingers, and Ryan made a sound into his mouth. Spencer immediately let go and it was only then that Ryan broke the kiss. He blinked at Spencer a few times and then said, "Don't let go?" Spencer got the feeling it wasn't meant to be a question.

"I just--" Spencer brought his hand up to Ryan's face. His fingers skimmed over the puffiness of Ryan's lips, his mind racing with the thought, that was me, I did that, I made them look that way, before he trailed them up to touch gently around the cut he'd so recently cleaned up. "You're sure?"

"I--" Ryan bit down on his lip, hard, the way he did when he was determined to keep himself from saying something. Leaning in, Spencer wriggled the lip free with his teeth, gentle but firm in taking it back. Ryan broke. "I don't know how I stayed away. I don't."

"Then don't. Not anymore," Spencer said, and rolled easily onto his back when Ryan all but dove into kissing him again. It was easier on Ryan this way, Spencer was pretty sure. And Spencer was able to work his arm over Ryan's waist and hold tight. He only stopped when Ryan started having trouble breathing into the kisses. Even then, Ryan made a noise of discontent, but Spencer fumbled with the hem of the t-shirt Ryan was borrowing and found his way to soothing his thumb over a patch of Ryan's skin. Ryan settled a little, then.

Ryan said, "Spence, Spence, can I--" He loosened his hold on Spencer's wrist and Spencer frowned, pretty sure Ryan could feel it, with how close their lips still were. Ryan hesitated, but then moved his hand, getting it caught on Spencer's waistband and then--

"Oh," Spencer said, although he could not, for the life of him, imagine how he had formed the word.

"Please," Ryan said, "I've been--"

"Yeah, yeah," Spencer agreed. He wasn't going to be able to say much else, he was pretty sure, because Ryan's hand didn't feel at all like his own, not at all, it was one million times better, hotter and larger and wow, Spencer hadn't even really known to think how good this might be, it seemed so familiar, but it wasn't, not at all. Ryan was saying his name and Ryan had said his name so many times, Spencer couldn't have counted if he wanted, but it had never sounded like this, breathy and awed and happy.

Ryan wasn't holding him lightly and it shouldn't have been enough, probably wouldn't have been except that it was Ryan, and Spencer didn't want anything else, never really had. He watched Ryan, the way he was concentrating so, so hard, trying to make sure everything was perfect for Spencer, just like always, and Spencer wanted to have forgotten this for so long; but now that Ryan was here, he was glad he hadn't.

Ryan's hand slipped, all the way up to the head of Spencer's cock and Spencer bucked up, into Ryan's hands and came. It hadn't taken that long. Spencer had some vague notion that maybe he should have waited longer, but Ryan looked so pleased with himself, Spencer really didn't care. What he did care about was, "I want to."

Ryan titled his head. After a moment he said, "Oh, um. Oh."

Spencer was not discouraged. Ryan was a little slow on the uptake when it came to people doing things for him. Spencer sat up and prodded at Ryan until he was the one laying down, making sure that he was comfortably settled. Ryan said, "It's not so bad," but Ryan hadn't seen himself when he'd come to Spencer's window. Granted, he'd probably seen himself lots of times before, but Spencer didn't care. This was now, and they were in Spencer's bed, and it was going to be perfect.

Ryan was still in the mismatched pajamas Spencer had loaned him, and it wasn't as though Spencer hadn't seen Ryan naked before--he had plenty of times--but Spencer couldn't resist bending down and touching his tongue to Ryan's skin just above his waist band. Then, when Ryan touched his fingers to the back of Spencer's neck, murmuring his name, sucking at the skin a little bit. They moved together, easing Ryan out of his borrowed cloths, and Spencer took a moment just to look before he once again started to touch. Ryan had soft skin, always had, even in the dead of winter, when most people's was flaking and hard to the touch, Ryan's hands had always maintained their smoothness. Spencer nibbled a little at the curve of Ryan's belly-button, causing him to giggle quietly. Spencer grinned against Ryan's skin before glancing down at where Ryan was hard enough that it had to be hurting.

Spencer said, "You can say something, y'know," but Ryan looked so confused that Spencer just kissed his stomach once more and touched his fingers to the head of Ryan's cock, smearing the precum a little. Ryan shuddered like he was going to come apart and Spencer might have been worried only he'd been there himself pretty recently.

Ryan said, "Spencer," like the name was a discovery, like he'd never felt the syllables on his lips. Spencer grinned, understanding now how pleased Ryan had seemed. He tightened his grip around Ryan, a little more aggressive than Ryan had been. Spencer had never been afraid that Ryan would break, not even at his most fragile. Ryan's cock was hot and smooth and fit perfectly in his hand and Spencer could feel himself getting turned on, despite having just come. It wasn't intense or urgent, just a shiver down his spine, a heaviness in his cock.

Spencer said, "Ryan, Ryan, look at me."

Ryan responded to the request immediately, his pupils huge, lips parted slightly, the flush of his cheeks obvious even in the dark. Spencer said, "Not wrong, Ry. We're not."

Ryan shook his head frantically. Spencer slowed his strokes until he stopped and said, "You can't-- No more running."

Ryan said, "No, no, no more."

Spencer squeezed, then, and Ryan arched off the bed, coming over Spencer's hand. Spencer's face hurt for the smiling he couldn't stop, but it didn't matter, not at all, because Ryan was smiling right back.

\---

They woke to smells of bacon and eggs cooking downstairs. Spencer laughed and Ryan buried his head against Spencer's chest.

"They know?"

Spencer laughed again, "They know."

Ryan kept his face buried, didn't so much as peak. "You think they're mad?"

Spencer ran his fingers roughly through Ryan's hair, tugging a little. "Would my mom have gotten up at 7 in the morning to make you breakfast if she was mad?" Voice light, teasing, but there were undercurrents of seriousness there. A reminder.

Ryan drew in a deep breath and emerged from his hiding place against Spencer's chest. "Your mom would feed me no matter how angry she was."

Spencer couldn't help it, he ducked down and kissed Ryan's nose. "True. But I think I smell blueberry pancakes too. She probably would have made regular ones if she was mad." Blueberries were Ryan's favorite.

He smiled, looking faintly surprised she would remember.

"You haven't been gone that long, dumbass." He tried to make it a joke, but it felt a little raw on his throat. Maybe it was too soon. Maybe it would just never be funny.

Ryan sobered. "Long enough." He sighed. "Too long. Spencer..."

"Hey. I... it's not okay, or it wasn't okay, not at all, and let me remind you once again that if you pull something that fucking stupid again I will... do something really bad, but it's... you're here now. I want you here. Kind of hard to stay mad at you."

Ryan smiled. "It's cause of my winning personality, isn't it?"

He held up his face, and Spencer took the kiss he was offering off Ryan's lips.

"Damn straight."

\---

His mom wasn't mad. She burst into tears the moment Ryan walked into the kitchen, barefoot and tugging at the sleeve of his borrowed t-shirt, and Ryan practically ran to fill her open arms. She hugged him hard, but Spencer could see her accounting for Ryan's injuries, being careful of them.

"Don't ever go being a stranger like that again," she ordered.

Ryan replied, still holding on, "Yes m'am."

\---

It was a cold day, a bitter wind in the air, but they got their coats and boots and went for a walk anyway. They walked along the treeline first, not cutting into the actual woods, just crunching against the frozen ground on the fields it surrounded, following the curved edge of the Smith property. Spencer was comforted with every confident step Ryan too. He hadn't forgotten anything either.

They stopped where the spruce trees gave way to their small apple grove, and looked up at the bare branches. Ryan said, "Remember that fall when I climbed up there to get the last red apple from the tree, and you wouldn't come up because you thought you had to stay on the ground to catch me in case I fell?"

Spencer remembered standing below the tree with his hands on his hips, shouting for Ryan to be careful and ordering him to come down. They'd been 9 and 10 at the time.

Ryan hadn't fell, and they'd shared the apple, taking bites and passing it back and forth until it was done. It had been perfect, juicy and firm. Ryan had declared it the most delicious apple in history, and Spencer hadn't disagreed.

"Yeah, I remember."

\---

They took their time, going everywhere else first. They walked almost the whole property and went to the barn, where Ryan spent nearly an hour talking to all the animals, biting his lip and babbling apologies to his grown-up litter of kittens as they curled around him, meowing and purring like they'd been saving up for his return.

He promised each and everyone of them that he'd be back to visit again soon, and then they went to the tree. Their tree.

Spencer expected Ryan to take it slow, but he went right up to it and traced his fingers along the initials they'd once carved there.

He glanced behind him at Spencer, and who shoved hands into his pockets and just looked back, not quite sure what Ryan was asking for. Ryan seemed to get his answer anyway, because he nodded to himself and turned back to the tree. He pulled something out of his pocket, his old Swiss army knife, and started working the blade into the wood once again.

When he stepped back to admire his work, Spencer was able to see. Ryan had drawn a crooked heart around their initials. It fit around them like they'd been made together.

Spencer held out a hand, and Ryan rushed to take it. They walked the rest of the way back to the house like that, gloved fingers joined together.

\---

That night they went out again, to push each other on the tire-swing and look at each others faces in the light from the stars. It was cold still, but the wind was gone, and it felt like the whole world had gone silent. The only sounds were their movements, their voices, and they whispered quietly just to prove they could still be heard.

When it was so late Spencer could see the sun peaking out in the west, they started trekking back to the house.

Half-way there Ryan caught Spencer's hands, and held him there, eyes bright.

"I love you Spencer," he swore, and Spencer smiled cause he believed it was true.

He kissed Ryan in the middle of that frozen field, and Ryan threw his arms up in victory as he whispered, "I love you too," into Ryan's mouth.

Spencer raised his arms to match Ryan's, and they ran the rest of the way back to the house, the wind streaming through their open fingers.

\---

Ryan stayed the rest of the weekend, and Spencer's parents didn't ask them any questions, not even when Spencer reached for Ryan's hand over the dinner table and, after a seconds doubt, Ryan let him.

He could see not questions but confirmation in their eyes, and he knew whatever worries they'd had about Ryan, and their friendship, it wasn't this that had troubled them. Ryan was still family the same as ever, and when they looked at Ryan all Spencer could see was happiness that he was back.

The twins were beside themselves, demanding Ryan tell them stories and completely forgetting their recent attempts to be Grown up and Cool at the age of 12. It made Spencer's heart feel light, watching Ryan with his family, watching the smiles he had only for them cross his face.

It was good, so good, to know that for all the time that had passed, and for all that things between them had changed, some things were still exactly as they'd ever been.

\---

Ryan rode the bus with him to school on Monday. He didn't speak as they got on, but he kept his hand on Spencer's shoulder, hovering in close behind him. It was something they hadn't exactly discussed, but Spencer had still probably been pretty clear on.

If they were trying this again, then this time they were actually doing this. No lying, no secrets.

He reclaimed Ryan's hand when they sat down, and held on tight, not sure if it was to keep Ryan there or just to steady himself. Most eyes were on them now.

Spencer tucked his cold nose into Ryan's cheek, warming it up, and Ryan smiled for all to see.

\---

They had all different classes, of course, but Spencer tugged Ryan close and hugged him before they separated. They were standing beside Spencer's locker, and people where everywhere, but Ryan didn't resist the hug, instead, he held on tight and only very reluctantly let go.

When he finally stepped back, he held out an imperious finger. "Stay safe," he commanded.

Spencer nodded, and poked Ryan in the nose. "Right back at you."

\---

The insults caught up with him by the first break in class, but it didn't rile him like it once had. He was suddenly free, and when a group of passing seniors snickered and called him a faggot as they passed, Spencer simply spread out his arms and shouted that he was the happiest fag on earth. Their laughter turned from confident to disconcerted, and they hurried down the hall away from him. He slammed his locker shut with satisfaction and walked to math with a spring in his step.

\---

At lunch they sat at a new table, not where they'd used to sit, and not where Ryan had eventually spent his lunches with Jac and her friends. When he glanced their way, he was surprised to see they weren't even looking. Certainly not shooting daggers with their eyes as he'd expected. He started long enough he got noticed, and Jac actually looked up and winked at him.

Spencer blinked. Girls were seriously weird.

When he turned back to Ryan, he was watching Spencer with a half-worried, half-amused smile.

"She winked at me," he informed Ryan, confusion clear in his voice.

Ryan nodded, unsurprised. "She knew."

Spencer boggled. "What?"

"Well, not at first, I mean, I tried to... pretend. But she's pretty smart, and she saw the way I'd still look at you, when I was sure you wouldn't see. We were only really 'dating' for the first couple weeks. She called me out pretty quick. After that, well, we pretended in public, but when we hung out it was just... just like friends, I guess." This part he did look confused about. "Yeah, I guess she was my friend."

"... but the cafeteria! Your huge fight."

Ryan chuckled guiltily. "Staged. I... I had to get out, I couldn't... you looked so sad. All the fucking time. I kept waiting for it to get better for you, so you'd see it was the right thing to do in the end, but you just kept looking sad. I couldn't do it anymore. And she as much as told me I was a fucking idiot every single day, so. It was her idea, having a big public fight. My out in case I was going to continue to be a, erm, chickenshit, about it." He smiled. "Her words."

Spencer revised his position. Girls were fucking awesome.

\---

He caught up to Jac at the break before the last period of the day, and simply blurted, "thanks," when he found he didn't know what else to say.

She grinned at him and patted his head. "No trouble kid. Your man Ryan's isn't as bad company as he looks."

Spencer wanted to laugh, or at least smile at her, but his heart clenched despite himself, thinking of all the time she got with Ryan while he'd been alone.

Her smile changed into something knowing, sympathetic, and she put her hand on his shoulder, and leaned in to say, "Hang in there Spencer Smith. There are other places in this world, trust me, I've lived in several of them. It won't always be this hard."

Spencer didn't know what to say to this, but he hoped the look on his face showed that he at least wanted to believe her.

\---

That afternoon Ryan waited in line with him to get onto the bus together once again, and Spencer held his hand because he could. Ryan didn't pull away, and when someone behind them muttered, "get a room, faggots," he just held on tighter.

\---

Spencer got punched in the face a week later. Ryan was one step behind him, he'd knelt down to tie his shoe of all things, and in that moment of isolation someone struck, but Spencer was too busy catching blood from his nose to even notice who it was.

Ryan swore and set off after them but stopped in his tracks when Spencer called him back, voice thick and muddled.

"S'nod wordh id."

Ryan circled back to him like he couldn't physically do anything else, tucking his hands under Spencer's chin and gently tilting it up. "Is that right, Rambo?" He teased, voice slipping into a poor imitation of an Irish accent. Two summers before they'd both been completely obsessed with Boondock Saints.

Spencer smiled for him, half out of the memory, half to show Ryan he was fine, really.

"Doesn'd even hurd."

Ryan rolled his eyes, and Spencer knew it made him a fucking sap, but it warmed his heart to see the familiar sight.

"Let's take you to the nurse just in case, okay?" From the way Ryan was already guiding him there, Spencer sensed it wasn't really a question, and he let his silent acquiescence be his answer.

\---

Ryan started coming over all the time again, every day after school unless he had work, which was every Tuesday and Friday. Instead of going home those days, Spencer walked to the diner with Ryan, and situated himself in the booth at the far corner, drinking hot chocolate and doing his homework until Ryan's shift finished.

Lesser bosses might not have allowed for that sort of thing; but Bob was clearly a gentlemen and a scholar, and merely nodded a hello from the kitchen as he worked. No matter how much the place filled up, Bob never once asked him to leave. Spencer usually finished his homework in the course of Ryan's shift, but mostly he liked propping up a book so he could hide behind it with his chin in his hands, watching Ryan move about the diner with quiet competence. He didn't know how long Ryan'd been out front serving customers, but against all Ryan's natural recalcitrance, he was really good at it. He always remembered what people asked for - even without writing anything down - and he could move fast without ever dropping anything.

Ryan took his breaks tucked in the booth beside Spencer, stealing sips of his drink and pointing out mistakes in his English assignments. Ryan had made it a personal mission to bring Spencer's grades in that class back up an A. Spencer was happy to do what he could to oblige him as long as Ryan kept leaning against his shoulder and bossily correcting his grammar in Spencer's ear.

\---

That spring Ryan's dad got sick, and for two months, he kept persistently not getting better. By Independence Day, they weren't talking like he was ever going to get better anymore.

Between school and work and visiting his dad, Ryan pretty much stopped sleeping, and no amount of cajoling from Spencer to rest and gruff orders from Bob to stop coming in to work could change it. Spencer would have pressed, but he understood. Ryan was getting closer every day to really and truly losing his dad, and he had to keep moving, and moving, because if he stopped for a second he'd panic and maybe not know how to stop.

\---

George Ross passed away on July 23, 2001, and Ryan didn't cry, but he did fall to his knees the second Spencer got him home, and promptly fall asleep so hard it was like he was trying not to wake up.

It went on like that for three days, three days Ryan didn't eat and barely broke from unconsciousness, until Spencer's mom stormed into the room and practically force-fed Ryan chicken noodle soup and just kept talking to him about all the things Spencer'd been afraid to, until Ryan gave into to it and cried into her side, clinging to her and draining out years worth of anger and loss and pain.

Ginger gave Ryan over to Spencer after that, and he held Ryan through his half finished sentences about loving and hating his dad all at once, until finally Spencer said, "You don't have to start feeling any differently about him now that he's dead. You don't have to be sorry you loved him, even after everything he did, but you don't have to start pretending he was someone he wasn't."

Ryan ran a sleeved hand over his face and nodded. It was the kind of calm that came after crying for a straight hour settling over him. He sniffed loudly and said, "He was my dad, and I loved him. I can't help that, just like I can't help that, as much as I never wished it on him, a part of me is glad he's gone."

Spencer didn't say anything, but a part of him was glad too.

\---

Spencer woke up needing the bathroom that night and when he got back to the room, Ryan was awake. He couldn't have said how he knew. Ryan was still, his breathing even, there was nothing to suggest that he'd woken up, but Spencer knew. He climbed in behind Ryan, covering him as best he could and asked, "Can't sleep?"

"I woke up," Ryan said.

Spencer didn't point out his statement of the obvious. Ryan was allowed to be a little off his game for the moment. Ryan was actually always allowed, it was just that Spencer was willing to let him know it right now, without reserve. He slipped his fingers under Ryan's shirt and rubbed at his stomach. "Nightmare?"

"Can't remember one."

"Maybe you're just not tired. You've been sleeping a lot."

"Feel..." Ryan sounded tired, though. "Feel empty, I think."

Spencer kissed at Ryan's shoulder, pressing his lips to worn cotton. Ryan said, "Not...I don't know. Not bad empty, just, empty."

"Maybe that's the grief."

Ryan nodded a bit. "Maybe."

Spencer pulled the covers a bit more tightly over them. It was warm, but he kind of needed it to be, needed the world to be nothing but their body heat. Ryan said, "Spence?"

"Yeah?"

"You, uh-- There's... stuff, in the nightstand, right?"

"Ry--"

"Just, I think, maybe, I'd feel less empty."

"Ryan--"

"I'm not like, unstable," Ryan said softly. "I'm pissed and scared and sad and all sorts of things, but I want this."

Spencer took a deep breath. "I know. Yeah, I-- Okay. Pass me the--"

Ryan was already digging in the drawer. Spencer was pushing at Ryan's boxers, wetting his hand, anxious to get it on Ryan's cock. Ryan made a soft, appreciative noise when Spencer managed, then handed the condoms and lube back to Spencer. Spencer was trying to get his own boxers down by way of wriggling against the bed. Finally he had to lift up enough for his free hand to help, then he settled back down, his bared cock fitting up against Ryan's ass.

Ryan moved, then, working to get his boxers off so that he could hook his top leg backward, over Spencer's. He said, "Spence, fingers, like--"

"Mm," Spencer said, more aroused than coherent. Ryan meant like the manual he'd managed to find through a Safe Sex Site--Ryan was nothing if not ingenious at doing research in ways that wouldn't call attention to himself. They'd pored over it time and again, too nervous to actually follow the steps, resorting back to blowjobs or handjobs. Spencer made himself focus enough to pour lube on his hand, a lot of it. He pushed a little at Ryan's shoulder to get him to lie flat on his stomach. Ryan resisted a bit, but Spencer said, "C'mon, it said--"

Ryan sighed and rolled face down. Spencer said, "Shirt?" even as he pulled off his own one-handed, pushed his boxers down and kicked them off. Ryan swept his shirt over his head and threw it to the side. Spencer leaned over to nip at the vertabrae. Ryan shuddered. Spencer said, "Yeah," against Ryan's back and pushed just the tip of his finger in Ryan. Ryan made a startled noise. Spencer asked, "Ry?"

"No, just. Um. Surprised me."

Spencer laughed a little, he couldn't help it, Ryan sounded so...young, the way he hadn't even when they'd both been children. He kissed at exposed skin some more and pushed in a little further, Ryan letting him in slowly. Ryan said, "'S'kinda weird."

"We can just--"

"No. No. I want this. I want this. You."

Spencer knew that tone. Ryan had very different bossy tones: there was the one where he didn't want what he was ordering at all, but was going to force the issue anyway out of some twisted, sad, Ryan-reason; there was the one where he was just being bossy; and there was this one, the one Spencer had only ever heard Ryan use with him, where he was sure he wanted something, ever so sure, and even less sure he was going to get it. Spencer said, "Okay, okay, but slow."

Ryan didn't argue with that, and Spencer turned his attention to fitting that first finger, then a second, in Ryan. When he managed those two, Ryan was breathing funny and Spencer said, "Ry? Ry, touch yourself."

"Oh," Ryan said, clearly having forgotten all about that part of himself. Spencer moved his fingers around, both trying to get used to the feel, but also trying to find the spot that the manual had talked about. It had made it sound so easy--

Ryan _squeaked_ and Spencer just about pulled out in panic, but Ryan said, "Do that again, Spence, whatever you just-- Do it again." He was breathless and sure of what he wanted and as confused as Spencer, but that was okay, Spencer was kind of glad neither of them felt confident. They'd find their confidence together, like always.

Spencer worked to add a third finger while Ryan was busy nearly hyperventilating from whatever Spencer was doing, and Ryan tensed. Spencer soothed a hand down his back, waiting. "We can stop here."

"Want more," Ryan said softly. "Even, I mean, they said it hurts the first time. So I know. I know and I still want it."

"But you--"

"No, I mean, I know, sometimes I let that happen and stuff, but not with you. Not like this. I just, if it does hurt, it'll get better, and I can have it any time, any time I want or ask or whatever, because it's you and you'll, you won't--"

"Shh," Spencer said, leaning over once more to kiss the side of Ryan's mouth. "Okay." He returned to working his third finger in, trying to get Ryan writhing again, like he had been. It took a long time, long enough that Spencer's legs started to ache from kneeling. He didn't notice. When he was ready, he pulled his fingers out carefully and rolled a condom onto himself along with nearly half the thing of lube. It took two attempts, despite having practiced. They weren't as easy as the instructions made them seem. Ryan was watching, lips slightly parted, eyes interested.

Spencer pulled Ryan's hips up gently and pressed his cock to the entrance. He said, "Okay," again, and pushed the head in. Ryan panted, making a small noise in the back of his throat. Spencer stroked at Ryan's hips. "No more. You tell me when you want more."

Ryan had his face pressed into the pillow and his hands fisted in the sheets. Spencer reached down and palmed his cock. Ryan breathed in, a little shaky, but fully. Spencer kept at it, and after another few minutes, Ryan said, "Okay, okay, little--slow."

Spencer worked himself in another inch, trying not to go any further, not to be overwhelmed by how incredibly fucking good it was. Ryan's small noises of pain helped a lot in that. It took a long time, long enough that Spencer was trembling and not thinking very straight, for him to settle all the way in. He tried finding the spot he'd found with his fingers, but he wasn't sure how to. By sheer, foolish luck, he managed just as he was barely able to hold on any longer, and Ryan said, "Oh. Oh." Spencer tightened his grip on Ryan's cock and tried to bring him along, but there was no way Spencer could hold out.

When he was finished, he tried withdrawing, but Ryan reached back and raked bitten nails over whatever skin was in his range. "Don't."

"But--"

"I was right. Not empty."

So Spencer rolled them both back onto their sides without pulling out, without letting go of Ryan's cock. He jerked Ryan slow and steady until he fell over the edge. When Ryan could speak he said, "Spence?"

"Yeah?"

"We'll clean up tomorrow, okay?"

It would be totally gross, Spencer knew, but he also understood. He kind of liked that he could smell the two of them, just by breathing. "Morning. Sure."

Ryan grabbed, Spencer's hand, not even seemingly noticing the mess, threaded his own in it, and fell asleep. Spencer wasn't far behind, never far behind.

\--

There'd been no life insurance, and what money his father had to his name went to his funeral. When the bank repossessed the house - after informing Ryan that his father hadn't paid the mortgage in over six months - Ryan hadn't contested it; he couldn't have afforded it anyway, even if he could have stood living there.

Ryan stayed on the farm with them for a month before Spencer lost the fight and Ryan got his own place. He was taking as many shifts as Bob could give him, but even with that and half a decade's worth of compulsive savings on his side, all Ryan could afford on his own - and he wouldn't hear of anything other than paying for it on his own - was the tiny, cramped apartment above the one laundromat in town. It smelled half like soap and half like dirty clothes, even a whole floor up, and the machines were old enough that they made horrible noises when they were too full, but Ryan did what he could to make it home.

He put up a few posters and kept it spotless, but mostly Spencer believed Ryan belonged there because books were scattered and piled on every available surface. They were the only things he didn't tidy, the only things he was content - even ecstatic - to leave everywhere and anywhere. Ryan wouldn't let him help with groceries or new clothes, but whenever Spencer got the chance he smuggled more books into Ryan's apartment, and he wrote Ryan's name in each one so he couldn't even try returning them.

\---

Ryan worked in the diner every day that summer, trying to save as well as pay his rent, and Spencer was there so much Bob gave him a job too. It happened as simple as that. One day he was drinking a milkshake and reading a book about rabbits that had apparently made Ryan cry, and the next thing he knew he had a towel in his hand and he was washing dishes for $7.50 an hour. Bob would have paid him more, but Spencer figured he'd spent a considerable amount of his future earnings on hot chocolates and strawberry shakes. And Bob was good to Ryan. Spencer kind of felt like he owed him for that even more.

\---

Ryan wouldn't take grocery money from Spencer, but he knew better than to turn down home-cooked meals from Ginger Smith, and Spencer brought over casseroles and pies whenever he visited Ryan. Occasionally he'd see his mother pacing in front of the kitchen window, and Spencer would say, "let's cook something," and they'd work together for an hour or two, silently adding Ryan's favorite ingredients to whatever they were making. They'd talk of other things, books they were both reading or stories about the twins, and when they were done his mother would throw up her hands and say, "Oh well we can't eat all that," and she'd look at Spencer with a worried face hiding a sly smile. He'd take the order she was silently giving, grab the keys to the truck and drive into town with the food cooling beside him in the passenger seat.

\---

Spencer liked to back Ryan up against the counters of his tiny kitchen, hoist him up onto them by Ryan's skinny hips and hold him there, kissing him for hours. Ryan's legs could wind around Spencer's back, locking him in just as tight, and they'd lose clothing slowly, not wanting to release each other's lips long enough to pull off shirts. More than once Spencer ended up with his t-shirt and and his jeans pooled at his ankles, breathing hard against the dip of Ryan's collar bone as Ryan chuckled proudly and ran his hand through Spencer's hair, easing him through the tremors of his orgasm. Ryan was kind of a smug bastard like that; but he always held Spencer up, no matter how much strength went out of his knees.

\---

To celebrate Ryan's 18th birthday they went camping for a weekend in the state park about 30 miles out of town. Ryan brought three books, insisting he needed to be prepared if he couldn't sleep, and just laughed and pretended to shove Spencer away when he leered and assured Ryan he'd find a way to keep him entertained. The first day they went hiking on one of the trails, and Ryan wrote down all the animals they saw in one of his notebooks. Spencer made fun of him for it, but Ryan refused to rise to the bait. Instead, he just looked at Spencer seriously and said, "I want to remember everything."

They took food in their packs, and had a picnic half-way down the trail which looped back to their campsite, and Spencer kissed Ryan under the trees with the sun on his face and butter cream frosting on his tongue.

\---

Ryan didn't end up cracking a single one of his books open.

\---

Spencer hated to see that summer go; for all the pain it had begun with, they'd lost themselves to a stream of perfect days that August, like they were discovering each other first time, like every moment was the beginning of something special.

\---

Fall came late and for awhile, even though school had begun, Spencer continued drifting blissfully through his days with a low hum in his heart.

He barely noticed the taunts anymore. Maybe that was because all he had to do was look at Ryan now and everything else lost its significance completely, melted into the background and far out of mind, but there was also less and less of it to notice. They were old news now, practically routine, and even though their relationship was still the object of suspicion, disgust and occasional snatches of violence, the shock had gone out of it completely for all concerned. That Ryan Ross and Spencer Smith held hands in the middle of the school halls wasn't approved of, and maybe it wasn't even strictly tolerated, but there was always other scandal building on the horizon. Someone was always getting pregnant, or going bankrupt, or getting dried out in the town jail for being caught driving drunk. Everybody still knew everybody else's business, but Spencer knew now that all they had to do was ride it out and something new would come up.

It still made him angry, so angry sometimes he had to cut class to drive around for an hour, blaring music and working off steam with Ryan sitting stiff in the seat behind him, unable to relax until Spencer did; but what mattered was that, even in his worst moments of frustration, Ryan was with him.

\---

Occasionally Ryan talked to Jac in the halls, and Spencer tried not to loom too protectively behind him on those occasions. Despite everything, he was grateful to her, and in other circumstances he might have even liked her. He could see why Ryan did, in his way. But that was as much as he could manage.

Ryan came right back to him, and he knew it should make him feel better, calm him a little bit more, but mostly it just made him want to hold onto Ryan so tight it left marks.

\---

It didn't even occur to Spencer that Ryan was graduating that year until he caught him leafing through an SAT study guide one morning before school. He didn't stay over very often, because he knew it made his parents uncomfortable in a way that having Ryan sleep over still somehow didn't, but occasionally he spend the night at Ryan's.

He sat down hard beside Ryan at the small table in his tiny kitchen and said, "Oh."

Ryan looked at him fast, catching the worry in Spencer's voice and said, "Hey, no. I'm just taking them this year cause everything'll be fresh. I'm not going anywhere."

Spencer took a minute to be blindly grateful before trying to make sense of that. "But you hate it here. You've wanted to leave since I've known you."

Ryan knocked their knees together and linked their fingers under the table. "Never once wanted to leave without taking you with me."

\---

Spencer had never really thought about graduating, moving away. Not before that conversation. He liked farming, loved their land, but it wasn't in his blood the way it was for his parents, or his sisters. They'd been in 4-H since they were old enough, and already they knew pretty much everything there was to know about the farm. It only made sense to Spencer that one day they'd be the ones to take over managing it. He knew Jackie had aspirations to be a vet, but that made the same kind of sense.

Spencer didn't know what he wanted to do with his life. As cliched as it was, all he'd ever really known he wanted to do was be with Ryan.

\---

Even though Spencer hadn't gotten so much as a scratch on him in ages, Ryan loomed extra close in the weeks prior to his graduation, like if he got in enough time glaring protectively behind Spencer's back it would linger the whole year he wasn't. Spencer appreciated the gesture, but mostly he appreciated the company; extra proximity to Ryan was never something he'd been particularly interested in turning down.

\---

Spencer was used to people not talking to him anymore, so he flinched in surprise when he felt a hand on his shoulder that wasn't Ryan's. He spun around, and it was Brent, of all people, standing behind him in the bathroom as Spencer wiped his hands dry on his jeans. He moved away from the sink and stared at Brent, wondering if he was about to have to punch some guy he'd known most of his life and had once almost thought of as a friend.

Brent looked almost exactly the same, bigger, but with the same mild, slightly awkward expression on his face, same nondescript hair and shuffling feet.

"What's up man?" he said, voice deeper than Spencer remembered.

He wondered when it was that they had last spoken , or he'd even noticed Brent in a class. Two years? Three? Brent was on the hockey team now, Spencer was pretty sure, but he didn't know what position he played.

He held up his hands, "Just washing my hands, you know, like they say, keeping it clean." Ryan would have laughed sarcastically if he were there. But he had a meeting with the guidance counselor during every lunch-break on Tuesdays.

Brent nodded though, ignoring the fact that Spencer was making strange jokes while sizing him up, and rushed out, "So like, I know Ryan's graduating in a few weeks, and he seems a little cagey about it, which, okay, that's fair. But I just. I just think - fuck it. This is fucking stupid."

Spencer blinked. "Which part?"

Brent waved his hands. "You and Ross, I mean, Jesus. We all grew up together. We've known you forever, there's not... you're not so fucking different, or special, or whatever. You like dudes, whatever, I don't get it, no one really gets it, but I just think... fuck it. That's what I think. Who isn't tired of all this? Ryan almost broke Tony's arm last fall cause someone said shit about you, and you looked like you were about ready to clock me the second I touched you. What's the point of it?"

Spencer shook his head slowly. "We didn't start this, we never --"

"I'm not saying you did! I'm just saying Ryan's graduating this year, and most of us are hoping to graduate next year, and other than that? All the kids below us? They don't know, they don't care. Everybody's got their own shit. No one cares who Ryan's dad was, or what you guys do with each other. Okay, no, some people do, but they're fucking jerks, and I think mostly this shits just been... just bored and stupid. I can't speak for anyone else, but that's what I think. And, if it's just you, like, when Ryan's gone, there isn't even going to be anything to see, so I'm saying, call him off. Get him stop freaking people out and just hang under the radar next year. I'll leave you alone. Hopefully other people will too."

"Are you trying to call some kind of a fucking truce?" Spencer kind of couldn't believe his life, sometimes. Most times.

Brent shrugged awkwardly. "Yeah. When Ryan graduates, I mean. Just stop looking like you're ready to take on everyone at once, and probably way less people are going to feel like they have to start something with you just to prove they're tougher than you, you know? That shit's getting tired. Just leave people alone. I think mostly the guys will be fine to return the favor."

Spencer's hands curled into frustrated fists. "That's all I've ever fucking wanted."

Brent looked momentarily sad, and he said, "Yeah, we all pretty much got that memo." He shook his head. "You and Ryan, I don't know what it was. You never gave anyone else a chance, not ever. And maybe we didn't do much to deserve one, but," he made a noise and broke off. "Whatever, doesn't matter."

Spencer wanted to laugh out loud, but he found himself shaking his head and saying, "Fucking fine. Yeah, sure. That's great Brent. Glad we had this chat."

"I'm serious, Spencer. I think people really will leave you alone." He sounded sad again, and it was only then, in that moment, that Spencer believed him.

He sighed, and met Brent's eyes. "Okay man. Yeah. Sounds good." Convincing Ryan was another matter, but Spencer was pretty good at getting his way. He had a lot more tools at his disposal than he'd once had.

Brent held out his hand, and Spencer really did laugh then, but only for a second, and then he reached out and shook Brent's hand. Brent clapped him on the shoulder before he left and said, "Have a nice life Spencer. "

For a second Spencer almost found himself saying, "yeah. You too," but he stayed silent, because he realized he didn't know whether he'd mean it or not, or if he knew Brent well enough to say it at all.

\---

A few weeks later Ryan graduated, but didn't attend his ceremony. Instead, he stayed the weekend on the farm with Spencer and his family, letting Ginger make him all his favorite meals without the slightest trace of protest and even accepting the card Spencer's farther handed him that Spencer knew contained a substantial check.

They took a horseback ride on that Sunday evening , something Ryan had always liked but they hadn't done in awhile. They rode along the lonely highway for a time, and then took one of the abandoned trails on the half logged woods down the way. They rode slow and talked little, but as the stars came out Ryan steered them back towards the Smith property, riding with a determined look on his face.

Spencer waited him out, knowing Ryan needed time to piece together whatever was coming.

They were back on his family's land, riding through the grazing field before Ryan said, "You're coming with me, right? I mean, someday, when we're both out of school and can actually afford to get out of here. That's... we're doing that together, aren't we?"

Spencer wasn't sure if he was more surprised Ryan was asking him something so direct or about the fact that Ryan thought there was a question at all.

He tugged gently on the reins, slowing his horse to a stop, leaning in, patting her neck and then looked up at Ryan.

"I've only ever wanted to be with you," he answered simply.

Ryan nodded absently, almost like that wasn't what he had been asking. "Yeah, but, here. I mean, out there... somewhere, away from here, Spencer, there's this whole world. We've only ever... we've been us almost our whole lives but it's just... it's only been here."

Spencer frowned. "So what, you think once we leave this place I'll realize there are better fish in the sea?"

Ryan shrugged. "We've been swimming in a pretty small pond, so far."

"Way to mix my metaphor." Spencer snorted, rolling his eyes.

Ryan smiled. "This is me being a dumbass again, is what you're saying."

Spencer laughed and shook his head. "At least you're getting better at noticing it."

After a beat, Ryan laughed too.

Spencer kept his horse still one more moment, just watching Ryan's face, happy and open, the laugh lingering, before he clicked his tongue and dug his heels in a little, encouraging a lazy gallop, shouting for Ryan to try and catch him over his shoulder. Behind him Spencer heard Ryan laughing in earnest, heard Ryan urging his horse to follow. For a minute Spencer thought about driving his own horse forward, making it a race in earnest, but he couldn't think of any prize better than having Ryan closer, so he tugged a little on the reigns, slowing his horse's steps until Ryan's was fully caught up. Ryan and his horse drew closer, close enough that Ryan's hand could stretch out to meet Spencer's, fingers loosely joined as they rode on together into the coming night.

 

 

 **Epilogue**

They left the only home they'd ever known behind the day after Ryan turned 19. Spencer's father drove them to the bus depot in town, and they rode four hours to get to a city with an airport. Ryan held Spencer's hand like he had when they were younger, like Ryan was afraid he was going to lose Spencer in the crowd.

They were flying to New York, a place that Spencer had grown up believing only existed in movies and on TV. They'd be studying at a real university, and living in their very own apartment, and it was so close to everything they'd always dreamed Spencer knew he wasn't the only one still waiting to wake up. Ryan held onto Spencer's hand so tight he might as well have been silently asking Spencer to pinch him.

Spencer bought them coffee with his free hand while Ryan hovered nervously behind him, unable to make eye contact with the barista in the airport Starbucks. It was the first time Spencer had bought something from someone he didn't know. She smiled absently and didn't tell him to say hi to his parents before he walked away.

They drank their coffees in silence, and Spencer wanted to ask Ryan what he thought of his hazelnut latte, but Ryan was drinking it mechanically and Spencer guessed that afterward Ryan wouldn't remember a thing about the coffee.

When the warning call came over the intercom that their flight was boarding, Ryan's whole body jumped with surprise; but he never let go of Spencer's hand. Spencer squeezed and stood up, pulling Ryan after him.

Ryan looked at him, eyes wide and startled, and Spencer ducked in a kissed him in a sea full of strangers. Instead of shying away, cautious of so many eyes on them, Ryan gripped the straps of Spencer's backpack and pulled him in tighter, kissing him long and hard. He bit down on Spencer's lip, just enough to sting, before finally releasing him.

Lips still buzzing, Spencer squeezed Ryan's hand, and started leading them in the direction of the security check. After a moment, Ryan quickened his pace, first matching Spencer's strides, and then gradually overcoming them. He stayed connected to Spencer, fingers twined tightly together, body angled slightly in front, his head held high.

They went through security like that until Ryan passed through the metal detectors, followed by Spencer, and Ryan reclaimed his hand as soon as he was through.

They stood immobile for a moment, looking out at the flight attendants ready to check their boarding passes and IDs. Before moving they turned to each other and took a deep breath almost in unison.

Spencer tugged a little on Ryan's hand. After a moment's resistance he started to smile. Spencer grinned back at him, feeling giddy, afraid, as Ryan took the fist step.

He pulled on Spencer's hand when he didn't move to follow, and said, "Come on Spencer, don't punk out on me now. Just think, if the plane crashes we might just end up landing on a magical island with giant talking orange and purple birds."

Spencer let the laugh build in his stomach, filling him up before he let it out.

"As long as nobody shoots me with a fire arrow," he retorted as they stepped onto the plane.

Ryan grinned and tightened his grip on Spencer's hand.

"Don't worry about that, I'll protect you."

Spencer laughed and shoved Ryan forward down the aisle. "Not if I protect you first."


End file.
